Correct me if I am wrong, but is it not true that any resonation of body woods is in essence a dampening of the sustain of the instrument (in effect, a transfer of energy from the strings). Of course, not all woods resonate at the same frequency as others, and the resulting frequencies that are transmitted are in a way, filtered. Dark woods must absorb those higher frequencies, whereas bright sounding woods may be less selective, or adsorb bassier frequencies. Following this line of thought, it would seem that an incredibly rigid, dense material would make the best body (like aluminum, or a brass sustain block), because it would be harder to transfer string energy to these materials, and the widest range of frequencies would be preserved. However, as we are all aware from the use of our low/band/high pass filters, the tone often sounds a lot better when you do cut out a bunch of the frequencies.
Oh well, just a thoughts on how wood choice could matter.
