All this talk about weak/sterile/thin Dragon II pickups has me thinking that a lot of guys have wired their guitars up wrong, or they completely don't know how to set pickup heights. I don't mean to disrespect any of you who have/had them and genuinely don't prefer them to other pickups; but I'm just saying I have a set and they're a completely viable regular/mainstream broad-based versatile sounding set of pickups. They're not like, "OMG WTF is this tin foil garbage s***?", they're actually decent pickups.
Well...if I were to choose a setup reason why certain pickups sound sterile, it would be pickup height. It's kinda shocking how much difference small adjustments can make. That said, pickup height setup isnt rocket science. There's the old "nickel technique", stick two nickels atop the bass side of a pickup, one on the other, raise pickup till they touch the strings, and boom, yer done. It works damn well and factory specs arent far off, so a good place to tweak to taste from.
I think alot of the complaint against Dragon 2's is based on two factors: Dragon 1's and dinero. Dragon 1's are objectively hotter, livelier pickups. No arguing that. I would surmise it came as a wee shock when newer PRS guitars came out with the 2's installed, and you expect Dragon 1 sounds, and...it just aint there. PRS strikes me as one of those companies that never feels like they fully nailed something, they are totally willing to scuttle previous ideas and go in a different direction. Most of the time it works out, with the Dragon 2's...I guess not so hot.
...get it? Hot? Right, pun because its a pickup? Right, yeah?....*hangs head in shame*
Err, anyway...price. D2's cost $150-ish per pickup generally. That's quite up there, so we have alot of competition to consider before cselecting this as an aftermarket choice. I like D2's myself, but at that price range we are getting into things like Bareknuckle, and specifically a very similar deigned hot PAF pickup style, the Abraxas model, is just a superior pickup all around and costs the roughly the same. I would choose D2's only if the price was right on the used market, and even at the $100 range (which is only where I would consider buying a used D2) theres alot of competition, and pickups I still like a bit better. I would say its rather hyperbolic to be super critical of the D2, but I cant say there arent better options out there for your buck.