All good points (though why were you asking in the first place, SoM?), so here's one more...
Since an AXY is just an MXY in a larger housing, roughly twice the necessary size, it is possible to place the coil in different positions.
I started out with two FatBoys, but wasn't entirely satisfied with the neck pickup, thinking I wanted it positioned closer to the bridge. So Mica suggested that (rather than gouging out big chunks of wood...) we could replace it with an AXY, in which the coil was offset as far as possible towards the bridge.
She walked back into the shop, and came out with one like that just a few minutes later (still warm from casting), and I love it. I don't know how much of it is due to the narrower aperture (vs. a FatBoy) and how much is due to moving the pickup a little closer to the bridge, but it works for me.
On the invoice, Mica billed it as the 'cast down south' pickup, because of the offset coil. Perhaps I'm out of line in mentioning this, as I have no idea whether this is something they would be happy to do often, nor whether they would charge extra.
And I should emphasize that the difference here was in going from a FatBoy to an offset coil in an AXY - shifting the coil within an AXY would probably not be nearly as noticeable.
But for me, it worked out great.
-Bob
