Les Paul Studio Faded for $600: Deal or Disaster???

Right now you can get a Les Paul Studio Faded for $599.

Baked Maple Board
Burstbuckers
Maple cap
3-piece chambered mahogany body

Is this a decent guitar, or junk?

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/guitars/gibson-les-paul-studio-electric-guitar

SKU #517030000008375

You'll have to try some to determine for yourself.

I played one today. It was pretty nice, actually. A bit bright, I think because of the weight relief.

I was hoping for info on quality/reliability. Is the baked maple a good material, or will it wear poorly? Is the guitar going to come apart because the gluing is poor? Are the pickups likely to give me trouble (microphonic over time, generally poor tone, noisy, whatever)? Are the pots going to fail? Is the bridge going to rust immediately?

Sure, parts are replaceable, but I don't want to put $600 into a $600 guitar. I already assume the wood is chosen from leftovers, and they just spit the bodies out of the CNC machines.

What is the general opinion of burstbuckers? (Yes, YJ, I know you will tell me to install BKP. And I will. I swear. Really. Honest.)

Baked Maple is a robust tonewood and it is definitely up to the challenge of being part of the fretboard. But yes, as you noted, it is a brighter and crisper sounding wood than Rosewood is. Take it or leave it.

Burstbucker pickups are good, as are Burstbucker Pro pickups. The best mod to do **honestly** is to swap your electronics for 500k audio taper pots and paper in oil caps. Adding some more highs really 'opens up' the sound of the instrument. After that, you just need to make sure the pickups are all set up correctly so that the bridge and neck pickup balance well.

Personally, I found the stock NECK burstbucker PRo to be really boomy and bass heavy while the bridge one was really thin and trebly. I used the bridge pickup for distorted playing and the neck for clean and some lead stuff. Of course, this might be due to the super dense mahogany used in my swiss cheese Les Paul so perhaps this would be less of a problem with a chambered instrument.

The Rebel Yells MOSTLY solved the problem until I exposed them to the Electra Dyne!!! Now I'm trying to mess around with my pickups again to see if I can get less bass out of the neck.

My advice, play as many as you can until you find one you click with. All guitars are not created equal.