Yeah I'm with you on that score but I can't be too righteous about it because I went through a stage where I replaced the electronics in my standard Europa with some John East ACG filters to get me a poor man's series II plus. ( low and hight pass filters with Q on each pickup, master volume and pan).
It sounded fine and alembic-esq in places and I used it on a few gigs but there were a number of things missing such as low end punch, the sound was a bit, clangy in the mids. Also I was getting hiss and other interference noise that was never there with the original alembic guts so after a while I put the original alembic guts back, smacked myself on the wrist, hammered my bank account and bought a proper series II.
