Interestingly enough (or not), I played a hardtail trans-black Ibanez GIO 7 string in the local Mom $ Pop today. I didn't plug it in, I did noodle on it for about 15 minutes and it played amazing. They wanted $250 for it brand new. When I was walking out the door, they dropped the price to $199. If I was not doing all this remodeling on the house right now I would have grabbed it. If it is still there after all of the home reno and the move I am going to grab it.
Even with 8's, a high A is almost impossible to keep that high, due to the tension. If the guitar had some weird banjo thing where the string started at the 5th fret, I suppose it could work (and actually be pretty cool).
Thanks guys, I was asking because I put new strings on my gretsch baritone. It came with 14-72 strings which were a little too much for me so I put on a set from stringjoy that's .135,.18,.26,.36,.48,.62. And I have it tuned B-E-A-D-G-b so it's like having the top 5 strings from a regular tuned guitar with a deeper option on the top string. Don't know if this is common or not but I think this baritone sounds great now. I really think the mini humbuckers do the job of preserving the lower tones excellently in this guitar while also sounding focused on the higher strings!
Even with 8's, a high A is almost impossible to keep that high, due to the tension. If the guitar had some weird banjo thing where the string started at the 5th fret, I suppose it could work (and actually be pretty cool).