new strat, tele v vintage

i asked the question recently could gibson make les pauls like they used to.

so i figured i'd ask everyone do they think fender can make as good or better guitars now or is pre cbs king?

I've never played a Vintage Fender and I've never played a Custom Shop Fender.  I do believe certian products they make are up there in quality if your willing to pay the extra cash for it.  I don't think a lot of Fender pickups are up there in quality anymore, maybe some of the custom shop stuff is or is close but from what I've been told I doubt it.  CTS still makes the pots for the majority of their american instruments and I'm sure they've lowered the bar for CTS to make the part cheaper.  Aluminum Shafts are a sign of cheap if you catch my drift. 

Now that being said, I do own a MIM Strat, a MIA Series Strat, used to have a Clapton Signature model, a Califorina Strat, and I've played countless strats of all different price points up to around $2000.  I can honestly say I've played MIM Standards that sound fantastic and could easily be used as a main instrument, and I've played them where I couldn't believe they would ever let something this bad leave the shop.  American Standards seem the same across the board to me.  They all are great playing and feel smooth but the pickups are lack luster and kind of noise pron.  My Clapton Strat I bought out of the fact it was the first one I had ever seen.  Had it for 7 years and never touched it.  It played horrible and was good for nothing.  If you liked clean amps you could play it and enjoy it, then use the boost for solos to get a little distortion, but if you used a amp with distortion I always felt like I was playing Heavy metal with it.  Wasn't for me and I never could get that clapton sound out of it.  Much easier with a normal Stratocaster.

Every company uses CNC routers now, and fender has been doing it since the 70's.  Bottom line with it is every body, neck and pickguard is cut out exactly like the program is setup for.  REALLY No difference in specs from 10 to 100 parts of the same type when they come off the machine.  What happens is belt sanders change the shapes of the neck when they smooth things out and thats when the parts start to vary.  This was even true pre CBS but they didn't have the consistancy in cuts that they do now so for the most part thats better.  Some will say well fender uses cheap Mexican labor now, but they live right on the boarder and have always had Mexicans that are under paid working for them. 

Really nothings changed, you get lemons and you get holy grails everyday.  The quality dropped drastically with CBS buy people still found great guitars even then.  It got a little better in the 80's when Fender bought out Fender from CBS, and it seems to me anyway they get better every year since.  Like I said the more you pay the better chance for high quality.  But as modular as a Fender is you can make it your own and have tons of quality to it.  just an opinion but thats why you buy a fender is because they are so easy to work on.