I'm looking on ebay at some different years of Deluxe HSS Strats and have a few questions please see below:

1. I've been looking at these HSS strats on ebay and most of them have a long hole on the back plate, but I ran across one that was said to be a 2005, which had the solid plate with no hole similar to that on an old Strat Ultra. Is this an add on item to that guitar?

2. I've also been looking at one Deluxe HSS on an ebay store, they have it listed as a B-Stock, saying that it has a scuff on it so the Factory deemed it as B-Stock, but that it still has the warranty. Is this likely? Is $1070 a good price?

3. I'm also looking at another one that is black on black (owner changed out pickguard) with a maple neck. How do maple necks play or wear compared to a maple neck with rosewood fretboard?

My opinions, for what they're worth:

1. I think the "long hole" in the backplate you're referring to is the one that exposes the end of the tremelo block and the recesses for the string holes... if it's solid, it means that the strings are attached by passing them through the bridge instead of the back. And you're correct, some of the later Ultra models had the Floyd Rose Type II bridge which eliminated the need for access through the backplate.

Someone else will know, but my guess would be that some earlier Deluxe models came with that same Floyd Rose setup, or else it was an option when purchasing (sorry, don't have time to look it up right now).

2. I guess you'd have to take a look at the "scuff" and see if you can live with it... if it's nothing, and it saves you $500... I'd definitely consider it.

3. Maple vs rosewood is subjective, and it seems to come up regularly on the board here (from what I can tell in the time I've been here, anyway). My take on it is... let's see... maple feels more "grippy" to me, although that may be due to the nitro finish I have on mine. I feel like I can really dig in with conviction. It really is hard to say with this sort of stuff. My ebony strat (not rosewood, I know, but I've had rosewood guitars in the past) feels a little more sedate to me, a bit more polite. I feel like producing mellower sounds on this guitar. Heh! Make of that what you will.

Wear-wise, maple obviously shows it a great deal more. It depends if you like the battle scars or not... many do, and personally I like to look at a fretboard and see where the player spends most of their time -- it adds interest for me. You'd have to play your guitar like Clapton's "blackie" to actually wear a neck and fretboard down to the extent where you had to consider doing something about it.

If I had to choose one or the other... hmm, sorry, but fretboard material isn't the deal-breaker for me; they're both good. Get two guitars!