Last year, I spent some time playing my brother's MIA Strat and decided I needed a Strat. I walked into a mom n pop store and bought the first one I saw. Boy, was that a mistake. I knew that there were MIA's, MIM's, and CIJ's but didn't know the models and walked out with a 95 Squier Series. Somewhere in it's past, some nefarious miscreant scratched off the Squier Series decal. I decided to mod the heck out of it and first bought a loaded pickguard from GFS to replace the ceramic pups with Alnico Vs. I didn't care too much for the sound of them and put a RioGrande TallBoy that my brother had laying around in the bridge and now I am very happy with the sound. For Christmas, my step-daughter gave me an Amazon.com card and I decided to finish the mods with a new set of Fender tuners and a Fender bridge.
http://www.amazon.com/Fender-Guitar-Vin ... RP6VNROXXD
http://www.amazon.com/Fender-Mexican-Tr ... RP6VNROXXD
After I install these, the only thing original on the guitar will be the body, neck, and jack plate. Can't wait.