Re: Rip that neck pickup out?
An SL1 has a humbucker in the bridge and single-coils in the neck and middle. You mention that your guitar has the same pickup in the neck and bridge; that makes me think it's a two-humbucker configuration like the SL2 models.
Your question is about whether you should remove the neck pickup and wire the selector for a kill position. Let's look at pros and cons.
Pros
1. Less weight.
2. You could put something else in the space. Like picks, snacks, etc.
3. Less string pull (from the magnet in the neck pickup). If it's an active pickup, I'd discount this, as the magnet pull is very weak compared to conventional passive pickups.
4. If you're not going to use the neck pickup, you could sell it or use it in another guitar.
5. It would make the "kill" switch a very easy thing to wire up. You could disconnect the neck pickup from the switch and maybe put a resistor across those terminals. (It wouldn't even matter if the pickup stayed in the guitar at that point.)
Cons
1. You're giving up another take on how your guitar can sound. If the neck pickup is the same model, it's likely a specialized neck version designed to make the most of the neck position. If not (let's say they're both bridge models, or just two of the same pickup that doesn't have neck/bridge versions), just being in different positions will make them sound different, because of the way the strings vibrate in those places. Do you care? Maybe; maybe not.
2. Aesthetics. You've already mentioned that you don't care about looks, so this one kind of gets short-circuited (so to speak).
3. Balance. This is a long shot, but I suppose it's possible that the absence of the neck pickup's weight could shift the guitar's balance in an unfavorable manner, making it less comfortable for you to play. Only you can decide if this is even remotely an issue.
4. That's about it, really. In a guitar with a single volume and a single tone control, the only reason for more than one pickup is to have more than one basic sound. If you can do everything you want by using just the bridge pickup, there's no need for the neck pickup. Maybe keep it in the guitar or stored in a safe place in case you ever want to sell the guitar; you'll get a better return if it's intact.
