thanks for your replies mica and robert. i tried the LED intensity control with no improvement. i do run these at a low intensity. the engineering dude that lives in my head suspects that the LEDs are connected in series. the red ones have a different forward voltage than the blue ones so they have seperate circuits. poking around in the control cavity seems to confirm this. i'm probably fortunate that the LED failed shorted so the rest of the string still functions, sorta like old-school xmas light strings. these LEDS are run at very low current (~6 mA) so having them fail in normal use like this is concerning. they're not subjected to heat or environmental abuse. they're fed by a line isolated DC source so they're not subject to reverse voltage or spikes. an LED in this kind of application should last practically forever.
in the case of the A-Bass the whole upper register LED string has failed. i've traced the faliure to an electrical issue under the fingerboard. i would suspect for the SII, it's a component failure. in either case they're unfixable except by perfoming a very invasive and expensive repair to the bass(es), so i guess it'll be my kid's problem when they try to sell them after i kick hte bucket.
i lit the A-bass up to take a picture for this post. it's been an exceptionally dry winter here in the mile high city, so the fingerboard has been drying out (and shrinking i suspect. i'll find out when i tune it up later today) you can see the upper register string just starting to come back on. if the neck fully dries out, i'll get full intensity out of it. normally this doesn't happen till around june.