What kind of music do you play? Because I would disagree with your comments on tone woods.
Everything you mentioned has an impact, including tone woods.
Interestingly,
@ML SOUND LAB had a recent thread that basically said the opposite: basically that pickups don't matter.
I own many guitars with the exact same pickups, same construction, same setup, same bridge. They don't sound the same. The difference? Body wood and neck wood.
Mahogany is different than Basswood which different than Alder.
Rosewood fretboard is different than Maple.
Now I'm an engineer by trade, so I'm not one to make a 17 page argument thread about a subjective matter . Instead, let's do an objective tone test or 'learning experiment' so we can all benefit, and see for ourselves
We both will do two short videos - with us demonstrating our points
In the first one, you can use as many guitars as you like, provided they are indeed as you say - same setup, strings and otherwise identical except for the woods they are made of. The bridge has to be the same height and the strings have to be the same gauge and material.
With them both unplugged, strum an F# chord twice the same way, in the same place on both guitars, and post up the video.
This eliminates the pickups entirely, leaving the sound difference due to the woods.
There may be a subtle difference, so to make it more pronounced, you can use a transducer like say the Korg CM200 and clip it on to the same place on the body of each guitar. Post the video too. The difference now is pretty much ONLY wood vibration.
But the difference is still not that stark as when I play through my Axe Fx you say.....
Now plug into the axe fx and using the same patch (preferably a clean sound), play the same F# twice on the guitars. Post the video, and you'll hear some more difference....you will wonder why on earth they didn't sound as pronounced unplugged, and I'll explain in more detail why when you post the video.
I'll also make a video, with just ONE guitar, and will make a couple adjustments to ONE of the pickups, and you will hear a VERY marked difference. I'll use the same patch you do, you can post it here, or use a factory preset. I still have my ultra, ii, AX8 and iii, so whichever one you wanna make the video with I can use the patch. I'm going to play the same F# twice, just in the same way you did, and post the video.
We can do a poll and see which of the videos the readers here find have the most significant differences and which have the least - just to make things more objective.
Sounds like a good test? I'm sure even Mikko would have to agree with the results afterwards.
I already know the answer, done experiments like this so many times to know the outcome, butets do it for the sake of edification for everyone here, what say you?