To each his own, and I totally respect other people's opinions about this, but in my opinion Eric Clapton's tone went straight down the toilet when he started using the Lace Sensors and the active mid-boost. I think the primary blame lies with the mid-boost, as I had the Lace Sensors in my old Strat Plus, and while I didn't love them and ended up replacing them with Duncans, the sound wasn't that bad and not near as bad as the neo-Clapton tone. As I've pointed out before, listen to the studio version of "Old Love" from Journeyman and check out the difference in EC and Robert Cray's tone. Once again, it's just my opinion, and I respect differing ones, but I think the seller did you a favor by taking it out!