Guest 26 Feb, I have to differ with your assertion that it's all about the electronics.

An "electric" guitar, even a solid-body, still contains significant elements of an acoustic instrument (acoustic in the perhaps arcane engineering sense that the bits are coupled together and affect each other via mechanical vibrations).

To take an extreme and possibly stupid example, if you fret a string badly so that it buzzes and twonks when plucked, you haven't changed a thing about the pickup coils or the amplifier, but the sound is drastically different -- and that difference represents the acoustic process going on in the instrument.

Much more subtle differences in the acoustic coupling among the parts of the guitar (string, fret or nut, bridge, loose screws on the pickguard...) DO affect the sound, as does the energy absorbing and transmitting property of the various woods used.

So the difference may be subtle, but it's real. The electronics do make a difference as well, of course. The old speaker coils and cones were different than today's mass-produced models, too.

-Glenn, who misses his old Tele but cares not a whit about a Strat