good idea, ill email wick. their stuff is amazing, the best natural wood type stuff ive ever seen. as for the designs around the body, i think those are inlays. your idea about the trem is brilliant, i saw these guys on letterman or something and he was doing just that but with a floyd rose. this is problably a strat trem set into a metal plate for the same effect.
i prefer trems for vibrato effects, but that plate thingy would make it easier to do pitch shifting things.
