A child of the 60's, those are the Fenders I could see around me.
It would be some time before collectors would take over the market, and you could still find old ones for up to $250.

Fender wasn't the only manufacturer to modify their original models, some of the new ideas like a bullet truss-rod and the micro-tilt were a nod to certain practical concerns like having to pop the neck every time you changed string guages, which got worse when you had to consider that the same guage change would make you have to reset the trem, and could put you in a loop, adding some string height for heavier guages.

The guitars were the industry standard, they sold well, and only snobbish collectors would really buy into the idea that the older guitars were better.
You had to be pretty gullible to believe that foreign guitars were better than the originals.
Anyone in the real world could try a Fender at their local store and readily snag that proverbial magic Strat out of a dozen.

The one thing that I had to deal with was how necks and slots would sometimes not fit that well.
I ended up using popsickle sticks to fix several guitars that had that problem.

if you look at the many reincarnations of the Strat, you will notice that the CBS look never did disappear completely.
Except for the headstock, the look is still there.
And, selling pretty well.

Those pickups, well, Fender wasn't the only manufacturer to start adding more wire.
Nowadays, not everyonbe wants to sound like glass, there are options that in the past didn't exist, and you can either buy a customized set, or buy a model that already has it.

Some of the pickup manufacturers are really out there, their lexicon is stretched to where it cracks when they start to add many more layers to their catalogs, you have those that post resistence, - why deal with multiple numbers and ever-increasing descriptions of tone?
Its just too much.
I'd rather deal with microvolts as more practical, you can go anywhere from less than 100 to some 200 as the old standard for humbuckers, to well beyond 400 and blow your speakers.

The CBS era was an evolution in product design that continues to the present. Plenty of Strats were made and sold, they were and continue to be the most copied design in the industry, these are cheaper to make than competing designs, no matter what you do to them, something that Leo Fender would be happy with.

Shhh, not so loud! It's not politically correct to say that one is a "CBS fan."

You are right, CBS features (well, Leo Fender features actually, he still "worked for" CBS during the first part of the CBS era) may be found on many of today's models; namely the truss rod adjustment at the headstock and the micro-tilt neck.

As for evolution of design, I look at today's American Deluxe Strat and I don't really see much advancement from the model of 1954. Fender doesn't use the farthest evolution trem design: Mr. Rose's locking/fine tuneable trem.

I have not had any problems with the neck pockets on my CBS Strats, but to be fair, I did not buy them blindly. Because I got to check them out before I purchased them, I would have been able to avoid such problems.

And, I like their original stock pickups! I did the replacement pickup thing, but returned to stock (when I came to my senses).

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

Hey, I got one of those!!

Whats hiding behind the black Marshall covers?

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"Wait a minute, somethings wrong here!"

The conventional wisdom is that although the emphasis on QC likely did drop during the CBS era, many great Fender instruments were produced during that time. Then as now, players with a keen eye (and fingers) can find wonderfully crafted guitars that stand up to any other era's. Embrace your CBS fandom! Anyone who would simply pooh-pooh the CBS era out of hand is just putting on airs.

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“All music is folk music, I ain't never heard no horse sing a song.” Louis Armstrong

A "crummy" '70s Marshall amp! A 2203 Mk II Master Volume 100 watt head from 1977 and one of its matching cabs.

This has been my number one "team" for over 30 years.

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

Well my Mustang is a CBS era one, and my Les Paul is a Norlin era one.

I can affirm there are some great instruments from both eras.

Don't believe all the negative hype.

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It wasn't Willy-Nilly, it was at crows.

I've got a CBS era Strat (1974) that was my main guitar throughout the '80's. Folks can talk crap all they want, that guitar never let me down.
Here it is

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"Life is like eating jalapenos. What you do today may burn your arse tomorrow"

The whole 70's era was an interesting time for guitars and amps. Known as the experimental 70's for the industry. While Gibson and Fender still made some great guitars, their quality was slipping. But they were also trying new things and ideas. In the meantime, you had the Japanese making high quality copies that were as good and better than the originals in some cases. The Ibanez copies of that time were very high quality instruments. Gibson even went to the dreaded (By Gibson) bolt-on neck in some models.

If you do a search for Bill Larwence(sp?) and the Gibson l6s, you can see some of the things that went on at Gibson at the time and their attitude toward Fenders. Obviously musicians and Bill himself disagreed.

My old Ventura is an example of a Japanese copy of the Gibson L6s. While the construction was not that of the original Gibson counterpart, they actually started making the gibson version going against their own standards. They made a bolt-on neck version. Gibson penny pinched the budget they had for Bill to develope a guitar to compete with Fenders. The final product was many compromises from what Bill wanted to do. The result was poor sales and then quality compromizes to the final product after Bill left. Instead of the guitar being the new Gibson that competes with Fenders tone, it was viewed a the poor mans Les Paul, which it was never intended to be.

Then Gibson spent more time, energy and money on sueing these Japanese manufacturs instead of making better quality instruments. All they did was force the Japanese companies to change their headstocks, but they still made copies. Ibanaez was finally sued in 77 due to the mustache design on the headstock. Ibanez was succesful in developing their own styles, but other Japanese companies were not as succesful

Japanese guitar quality is still as good as American. My ESP is an extremely high quality guitar. Which is also reflected in the prices these days.

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Guitars:
1. mid 70's Ventura MIJ Gibson l6-s clone (Pre-lawsuit) in Black with Rosewood FB and EMG 81 BR/ 85 Neck
2. ESP KH2 Neck Thru
3. 2008 Am Std Strat in 3 tone sunburst