As I am shopping for my first love, er, Strat, I keep looking at various ones. Then I peek at the trem assembly design, and the mech. engineer in me shakes his head...

I know, an uneducated, silly thing, can't help it!
Did some homework by reading some Dan Ereliwine material... It helped --except that every other Fender setup person reportedly does something different, then DE mixes it up in a new recipe..!

Question is, can a carefully blocked trem provide sustain and keep string happy?

"Hard tail" could an option, I guess, but how common is that?