I am pretty sure the Hot Rails one I was looking at is routed properly. But pretty sure is not sure. I have put in a question at the Strat Talk forum for Hot Rails owners there.

Also, I am getting tempted to put a nice 22 fret neck on this. Not that I have ever played up there much, if at all.

I was looking at necks from the Fender Blacktop HH strats, and they are really nice 22 fret RW, just what I want. But they cost more than used Squier Standards and Hot Rails guitars. I guess the advantage of starting with a cheap guitar, if in fact it was routed properly (though i am not opposed to some woodwork), is that I could spread out the mods over time and experiment and have fun with that.

But, OTOH, I have seen Blacktop strats used for mid to high $300 range, and I know that they are nice, have decent electronics to mod from, decent tuners, a good neck, and are routed properly. Gets me out of the real cheap project range though.