I recently bought the SE SAS over the CE simply because it has 22 frets....my other 5 s2s are 22 frets....mira, vela. Standard 22s....BUT for the price of the SE CE should I give 24 frets another go?? I just get lost ripping after the 15th fret on 24 frets....is a CE 22 on the way possibly?? Thoughts from the gallery....
Its not the 'extra' frets that appeal to me as I am not really a shredder or 'need' those extra 2 frets enough to really care. Its the different, perhaps 'modern' sound these guitars offer. With a regular Custom 24, 4 out of the 5 sounds are different to a Custom 22 - simply because of a different neck pick-up position relative to the bridge.
22 fret allows for a bigger distance between HB's but also a more 'traditional' distance for the more traditional 'neck' tone. So if you want something 'different' or more 'modern', a Custom 24 may offer that - even if you never need to use the 'extra' frets.
At the end of the day, Guitars all have the same notes (albeit some may have a few more (like 24fret or 7string guitars) so can be used to play the same songs regardless. So its just about whether you 'like' the sound and/or whether it suits the song in the mix alongside the rest of the band. You may prefer the 22 fret neck in isolation for example but find the Cu24 cuts through better in a mix for example.
So for me, it really doesn't matter if it has 21, 22 or 24 frets, I doubt I'll use those extra few notes so it really comes down to expanding the palette of tones. You can collect different styles of guitars - like a LP type, a S-Type or T-type for example to get different tones, but also get different models (like a Cu22 and Cu24) to get different tones too.
I have 2 Cu24s (Regular and Floyd with \m/ pups) and the other 5 are all 22 fret models despite not really using much above the 20th fret for the vast majority of my playing. That's more for different flavours of the 'same' notes/chords to either add my 'own' sound or get closer to the Original recording.