I have been looking at the JM strats for a while but they are too pricey for me right now. I know that I can purchase some Klein S-5 or Buzkut pickups and throwing them in a Strat but I am curious if the build quality of the JM strat is greater than they build quality of an American Special, Standard, or or American built Strats. Is it just the pups that makes this thing so stinking expensive?

Try looking the specs of each those, they have their perticularities.

Absolutely, I didn't by any means want to sound lazy. I have looked at a ton of specs but just wasn't sure if the main reason for the high resale price on these were the pickups. I know that the neck is different than what you can find on most guitars as well.

As far as the body, the quality is imo all the same. It's the neck and pickups that really matter. It's a nice comfy bigger neck, with good 6105 frets, but not quite as beefy as the srv sig neck. Big dippers are awesome, klein s-5's are nice but it's not the same..

The wood selection is a bit better on the artist series than the lower level American Stuff, and you have a traditional strat route SSS if that matters to you. The neck is way better than anything lower price, but that is just my preference, you may not like it. But Overall you are getting a better guitar with even more attention to detail. Not to say the entry level american stuff is bad, its just that the Sig stuff isn't produced in as big of volumes. The Mayer I have is 1/500 for example