Thanks for the help everyone!
My luthier did offer to make me a custom pickguard as well, so maybe I will look into that alternative.
If I was to chose a neck mounted pickup though, would the cables be visible on the guitar, or how would it work? I'm not sure I understand...

Ceri - I will be sure to take a picture for you! I believe the binding is simply for looks though, I don't think it has anything to do with craftsmanship. Simply a guy that thought a binding would look cool. I might be wrong though. I know that they tried to make it look like a flamed maple top, but it is not. They just painted it like that for effect.

Again, thanks for all the input!

The Epiphone Emperor appears to use the floating pick-up, very clean solution imho.

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=epi ... 0177925AC0

Cheers,
John.E