I'm old enough to remember when Dimarzio started selling replacement pickups in the 70's and in my yoof went through a phase of checking out what was available, (at that time I think I had an Ibanez L.P. Copy) PAF and Superdistortion models were about it at the time and the difference between them and stock P/U's was easily discernible. Also had an old Strat (not sure how old it was but it was a 4 bolt neck) I swapped out the "nasty old" pick ups for a set of Dimarzio SDS1 (?). I recall taking the covers off the old PU's and looking at the coils which (to my eyes then) seemed to only have been partly wound and very sloppily at that and thinking should I throw them in the bin or not and gave them to a friend to play with. Where's the face palm emoticon............. Next guitar was a 77 L.P. Deluxe Goldtop and Seymour Duncan came along so I had one of the first sets of his p/u's to arrive in the U.K. a PAF in the bridge (or was it called a pearly gates) and a JB (Jeff Beck model) in the neck that was a great combination the difference between the stock minibuckers was night and day but the differences between the Dimarzios and the S.D's were not so obvious to my ears and this is (more or less) where I stopped swapping (until recently). It depends on the guitar too, one of the Standards is un-molested electronics wise and I'm happy with the way it sounds with the stock Dimarzios, I can't ever see that getting any surgery any time soon, same for the 78 Sunbursts. 2 of my V's have stock pickups, T tops in the 75 which sound just as they should and (allegedly) Tim Shaws in the 85 which sound un-believeably good. However the daily driver Standard had a set of Super distortions in it when I got it so I don't mind fiddling with that (I swapped the bridge p/u straight out for a Lollar Imperial high wind as I'm not a fan of the Superdistortion) and I just popped a set of JB Gregwinds in there (thanks Currypowder) and replaced the volume pots with push push pots (thanks Murkat) so I can tap the coils, not had chance to crank it up yet but it sounds great through the practice amp at home in Humbucking or Single coil mode. The Imperial will be going into the 79 Sunburst later today along with another Imperial as this also had a P/U swap by a previous owner and I'd rather they were in a guitar than just sitting in a drawer, it will also get a set of push/push pots to split the coils.. This is probably the first time I've had the inclination to do this in 20 Years and I think some of it is because I'm in a position where If I don't like the sound I can just grab a different one from the stash whereas when I was young I didn't have so many guitars and couldn't chop and change easily if I wanted to try and improve the "tone" so I had to hope that changing P/U's would be enough. ETA: It wil be interesting to check out these guitars side by side now and have a chance to hear the differences between them in "real time". I ticked the rarely box as I generally keep the stock pickups in my guitars now but I will buy pickups if I see something interesting at a good price with a mind to future fiddling.