Commodore,

Yes, sometimes their isn't much difference unless you get some real good pickups like Seymour Duncans or Gibsons. GFS seem average unless you know exactly which ones to get.

This is a noisy tele and noiseless pickups are going in, so I hope to see quite a bit of change. Whether I like it or not remains to be seen, but I've played vintage noiseless pups in strats and like the tone. Maybe the same will hold true for the tele.

Also, when you change out to real good pickups, you might not notice much change using certain amps. With good all tube amps I have found that the difference is very noticeable with dynamics, tone control, attack, turning up the volume, etc.

Some stock pickups are great the way they are. The pickups in this guitar sound good, but are noisy and I want to have at least one tele that is noiseless.