To me, I play these guitars for a multitude of reasons.....
1.) I like em', and that should be the only "excuse" or "reason" or "justification" I need. Why do I like them? They're comfortable sitting or standing, they're very loud, they have tonal properties unobtainable by anything else due to the design. I laugh at how people talk about these guitars like they are delicate snowflakes when the real snowflake from my experience are those tempermental high maintenance Floyd Rose guitars that need new pivots/trem system every 10 years, while my Jag-Stang still kicks butt 10 years later, even WITH worn pivots. I'll take the trem that lasts the longest thank you very much. My OFR has pretty much died, but my Jag-Stang is still in the "Brad Gillis" category as far as the trem goes.
2.) Nobody else uses them, Dime used a Dean ML, Vai/Satch/Dragonforce/Reb Beach all play Ibanez, Page/Beck/Clapton/Sykes/and countless others use Les Pauls, Yngwie/Blackmore/Hendrix/Vai/Lifeson used stratocasters. Name me one "Dino" or "Shredder" or "heavy" guitarist who uses a Jaguar, Jazzmaster, Mustang, or Jag-Stang. The mainstream accepted cult of personality around these guitarist is either surf, new wave, punk, indie, or grunge, which is kind of sad because in the right hands they are capable of a LOT more than that, plus some in the alt/punk genre give me a hard time, so I like giving them a hard time by playing the guitars THEY don't like seeing play that kind of music, I kind of get a kick out of that. Nothing like seeing a pretentious indie kid go on a hissyfit because he just saw a Jazzmaster eat a song originally written on a Les Paul for breakfast.
3.) The point is not the guitar, it's the player. I think the point to a lot of the Offset Vids, mine included, is that it's not the guitar, it's the person behind the neck and their ability to make magic with it. The guitar alone is not going to play the music, it's the one who plays the guitar that does it. The whole reason behind the metal guitar's design is to make it easier to play for that style, but that does not mean that they are for everyone playing that style. I prefer rounder fretboard radius and lower frets, yes it makes some things harder, but some things are easier for me because of it that would be harder on the other.
4.) It sounds different. Few, if any, use a Jazzmaster pickup as a "High Gain" pickup, most would rather just put a 14.5K humbucker there and put a noise gate on it, which is too easy. There's a way to play single coils like humbuckers with high gain. A good analogy is driving an automatic and a manual transmission. With humbuckers, hum is cancelled, they are often wax potted for the job, and can be left turned up to 10 on a stage without squealing, it's like an automatic. Single Coils might require a noise gate, a lot of them squeal, even the high end ones, because they are not potted against feedback as that was in their vintage nature, and in the case of Jag and Jazz, they can be tinny with the stock pots, making one have to use their controls more. The Jag and Jazz have a lot of controls...I say use em'. My Jazzmaster runs at 5-7 on the lead circuit most of the time, that's how I get a good chunk out of it, even with 009's, but then think about Billy Gibbons of ZZ top, he uses 008's, and still gets a big sound with those, even on a single coil guitar like an Esquire. It's more work, but it's worth it.
