I had an opportunity to visit the closest GC to me today. I could check out the Deluxe Nashville Tele and the Player Tele back to back. I was surprised that the fret size and radius were not as big of a deal as I anticipated (9.5 vs 12). What did make a huge difference was the finish on the fretboard. The glossy finish on the Player was a non-starter for me. I kept getting stuck in bends. The satin finish on the Deluxe was nice and smooth. The Deluxe Tele also seemed to have a more modern (read: thinner) neck profile whereas the Player is more traditional C. Either would be very comfortable. Another surprise was how heavy the Deluxe Tele was. Not Les Paul heavy, but a good bit heavier than the Player Tele and WAY heavier than the Player Strat. Lesson learned: a Player would work, but it would need to be the Pau Ferro fretboard.

I have to say that I was very disappointed with Fender's QC. Every one I tried at three different stores (and mind you, these are all guitars between $600-$850) had some amount of fret sprout/rough edges. My Jackson's frets didn't need to be touched--odd since it's also FMIC (I cannot speak about the Jackson's original setup. I had Guitar Center "professionally" set it up with my preferred Boomer 10s. It was screwed up seven ways to Sunday.) The Fenders also seem to only barely have been set up into a guitar-shaped object. Now I understand that everyone has a different taste in how guitars should be set up, but all of them needed a truss rod adjustment. The saddles didn't even vaguely follow the fretboard radius. None of them were close to being intonated. The nuts on the Players would need addressing, some more than others. Now, none of those are a big deal. I could easily fix all of them. I would expect that from cheap Chinese-made instruments. I would not from a MIM.