Something I've noticed in my recorded tracks, too. Parts sit really well in a mix.
For me, it's probably not so much the pickups, and more a matter of having started playing in the 60s, with 60s instruments, and being rooted in those tones. By the 80s, I wasn't listening much to what was popular at the time (the whole hair band thing being an example); I hadn't stopped exploring new music, but I was more into fusion and Americana, and of course, still doing a lot of work on keyboards. When I first got into doing ad music in '89 or so, clients always insisted, "No screaming guitars!" So I'll admit, I was pretty much out of the guitar tone loop back then.
In any case, I think that might be why I didn't relate as well to the 80s-early 90s pickups - they were probably created to appeal to a different style of player.
Nor was I into high gain; though I was into Mesa amps back then, I bought the ones in their lineup that were more vintage sounding, and avoided the higher gain offerings (though their higher gain amps were indeed very fine amps, it just wasn't my thing). I remember playing the red channel on my Tremoverb the day I bought the amp just to see what it sounded like, and then never using it again in the decade it was my main studio amp, and the rest of my Mesas were lower gain models. What they called their "blues" channel on the Tremo was about as high gain as I could go without gnashing my teeth! In fact, I think the blues channel was the main one I ran on that amp, and I'm not sure I even bothered connecting the foot switch. When I wanted the amp cleaner, I just rolled down the guitar volume. In any case, maybe this kind of thing explains why the early PRS pickups didn't quite work for me, and I do remember taking my '91 in for a pickup swap.
But at one point I did have 5 or 6 Mesas around the studio.
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