Dude, you are like dr Frankenstein when it comes to pickups!
I may have to try this out.
Does this ring true for both neck and bridge?
Are there different strength ceramic mags available?
No, just bridge.
Here's the trick for the full shred neck, same works on jazz neck since it's the same coils. I hate muddy neck buckers, especially the low strings. Both FS and jazz are naturally airy on top, moreso than any other commercially available standard humbucker, so they are the best candidates for this. Trick is: remove 3 poles under the bass strings on the neck side coil.
For FS neck, you can get 316 stainless 5-40 x 1/2" hex poles and put them in as dummies where the bass string poles were, since that alloy is essentially non magnetic. FS can install either direction, so you can split to whichever coil you have a full 6 poles in.
For Jazz neck, I install screws toward bridge. Remove 3 slugs under the bass strings. If it has a cover, this is invisible. If it doesn't, mcmaster carr sells plastic slugs that are exactly the size of humbucker slugs. Put 3 in, get a silver sharpy, no one will notice.
On both, once you do the mod, adjust the pole pieces on the coil with all 6 magnetic poles for even string output.
Boom. Airy, touch sensitive, articulate high strings, non muddy low strings.
The only other humbucker I use is a fralin twangmaster I have specially wound, with special A5 magnets for low string pull. It's essentially a noiseless Z coil that sounds like a big strat pickup but matches well volume wise with a paf bridge.
