My girlfriend just bought me my first real Fender Stratocaster (MIM)! I've owned Squiers and such before. It is a 2006. After doing some research, I've realized that I'm lucky to have gotten an '06 as that was the first year Fender upgraded the trem block and some of the electronics and such in the MIMs. It got me thinking though;

Is there a complete list somewhere that shows what changes were made to different models each year? I'd be really interested to see that. Just curious.

Unfortunately there isn't a complete publicly available year-by-year resource right now.

"The Fender Stratocaster" by A.R. Duchossoir does have year-by-year changes for at least the vintage-era Strats (USA-built guitars from 1954-1982) but it was last updated in 1994. I don't have a copy of this book so I'm not sure if it goes year-by-year on the American Standards, American Vintage Reissues, etc.

The best thing you can do for newer guitars is get the actual specs from Fender by email their Consumer Relations folks at consumerrelations@fender.com