Well it's like this Ace, I have always liked Zakk and LOVE his guitars. I really like his style of playing too, but I have never been a big fan of his tone, especially live. It's sterile and it sucks. I've always felt if he would change pickups too to something a little more organic sounding, he would sound much better. I'm thinking of putting the 85 in the bridge and trying a 60A in the neck. Haven't ever tried that, but so far those seem to be the most suggestions I'm getting. As far as not buying it if it wasn't what I wanted, hell bro, I don't have the cash to buy a ZW. My loaded aunt got it for me the other day cause I said I liked it. Don't get me wrong, I had always wanted one, but figured it was way out of my reach. I just want it to sound more along the lines of "my" style.
Spot on though I have not played the Clapton Strat, so I realy dont know anything about the electronics in it but yeah thats my whole point.
Anyways, before you go about changing pickups, run the EMG's in 18v. Its a simple mod and it really opens them up, they don't sound so compressed, have more headroom and improve the clean tone also. I have an EMG 81 in my Focus 1000 and its great running it with the 18v mod. I never liked the EMG tone but then I heard about the mod and checked out a bunch of video clips and was intrigued. So I bought the 81/85 set and gave it a shot and like it a lot. I wouldn't run active EMG's without it and they made a customer out of me because of it....and I used to HATE actives before. Here's a good link explaining it and how to do it. Its easy and easily reversed and cheap to do.
