The Studio arrived today. It looks great, plays great and sounds interesting. The bridge pickup, at factory height - through the EF86 channel of my Bad Cat Cub IV - sounds A LOT like a Gretsch Pro Jet that I had. It "kerrangs" nicely, and with the "fat boost" engaged, it sustain nicely. The D-type pickups will need to be tweaked. The drop in output is too great when working through the switch.
Also, as I figured, I am not too keen on the middle position tones. My Vela also arrived today, and the bridge/neck combo on the Vela (to my tastes) eclipses what the Studio sounds like with the bridge/neck combo. I'll see what happens once I have some time to mess with the pickup heights.
The color is GORGEOUS. I had an Ice Blue Mist S2 Singlecut Standard that was a little more blue. I really liked the color of that one. The Frost Blue is WAY more subtle. It's blue, for sure, but it's kind of silver, too. It's pale, but vivid at the same time. It's a VERY unique color.
I MUCH prefer the new S2 trem arm with the black tip. My other S2 trem bars are just metal, and feel strange in the hand.
In all, I think it'll be a guitar I enjoy even though it hasn't knocked my socks off (yet, lol...might be a slow burner!). I'll do a NGD post after I get some pictures. My wife was vlogging at Universal Studios today with the camera, so it wasn't available. Hopefully tomorrow night....