Can anyone chime in and tell me the difference in tone between a maple neck/rosewood board and a IRW or other type rosewood neck with a rosewood board, please, all else being equal? I haven't been able to understand how these different neck woods will affect the tone I might be looking for.
My fret board preference would be brazzy.
Before ordering PS, you really owe it to yourself to go somewhere they have a good selection of PRS and play a bunch. This, even if you have to travel; after all, the cost of travel is a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of the guitar. Right now you have no base of comparison, and you're utterly shooting in the dark.
As an example, the 594 scale length sounds different from the 25" scale length, and its bridge produces a different tone from the McCarty and Violin, too.
The "PRS sound" the company is most known for is its mahogany back, maple top, mahogany set-neck, RW fretboard, humbucker guitar. This starting point gives a balanced sound, with good sparkle in the high end, and nice definition in the mids and bass.
Substitute a maple neck for the mahogany, and you tilt the frequency balance toward the high end, change the characteristics of which frequencies sustain, and scoop the mids. Use rosewood for the neck, and you tilt the frequency balance toward the lower midrange, change the characteristics of the sustain in that direction, etc, so the impression is added warmth and punch. The guitar is usually heavier, too.
The shorter scale length on the 594 focuses the mids a bit, and the 2 piece bridge tends to add a more vintage, woody, tone.
Whether any of these is the right choice for you is impossible to say, since you have no experience with any of the Core models to have an idea as to what you'd like to change about them. My own experience has been that PRS electric guitars sound more like what I want to hear with a mahogany neck (yes, I've had a McCarty with maple/Braz and two with RW/RW). But that's a personal thing; I go for a vintage 'bucker type of sound, grew up in the 60s with Gibsons, etc. The further I get from that kind of tone, the less the guitar does for me, so all 3 of my PS have 'hog necks. YMMV