Here's the thing:
What you're referring to as old-school PRS was never old-school at all. PRS was a very modern guitar, even cutting edge. When PRS first started, people objected to buying an expensive guitar that
didn't have the fretboard binding! I bought my first PRS in 1991 (and have owned 36 since) and I remember thinking twice about investing in a high end guitar whose maker didn't bother to bind the fretboard, because it looked cheap!
Incidentally, my first 1991 PRS was a Whale Blue Custom with a WRAP finish.
Two-piece bridges are
very old-school, introduced on (at the very least) the mid-to-late 1950s Gibson models. There's nothing modern about the idea, except the PRS ones are a design that looks better and is easier to string. PRS also made an early Signature guitar with a two-piece bridge.
But regardless of what you consider old-school, I'm going to make this observation: The PRS models with the two-piece bridge
sound more old-school than the PRS models with the standard stop tail bridge. If you agree that old-school is the goal, there you are: get a 594 or similar.
Re: bindings:
Plastic fretboard binding was
always found on the higher-end guitars made by Gibson, Martin, Rickenbacker, Gretsch, etc. It was a
feature, and is functional - it kept the fret ends from poking your hand if the fretboard shrunk, as many of them did back in the day.
When I started playing, only the cheap and cheerful guitars' fretboards weren't bound (this includes Fender, whose 'band-saw' guitars were less expensive than their competitors from Gibson and others).
Binding also followed the tradition of luthiers going back to the Renaissance and Baroque eras, when ivory was used to bind the fretboards and bodies of guitars by makers like Stradivari and his predecessors. Here's a 1679 Stradivari with a bound fretboard:
So, what do you consider 'old school'? One thing's for sure:
The early PRS models aren't old-school. They were intended to compete with the Super Strats of their day that were the hot ticket.
PRS' return to bound fretboards IS old-school! PRS' return to two-piece bridges IS old-school! If they were still making the JA with the wooden tailpiece and separate bridge it would be even MORE old-school.
I suppose one could define 'old school PRS' in a different way. But then what does one make of PRS' VERY modern floating bridge, and other design elements he patented? The winged tuners were NOT old school. The shape of the headstock was radical at the time.
Point is...let's not get into all that 'old-school' nattering. Buy what you like, don't buy what you don't like, but all the other stuff is just preference and shouldn't matter to a real player.
