The VM Jazzmaster does sound very nice. The maple neck is a little bit chunkier than what you'll find on an MIM Strat, but it's very playable and the frets are nicely dressed. I'm surprised at how nice these single coil Duncan Designed Jazzmaster pickups sound. Fit/finish is also better than what I've seen on Squier Standards and they actually come very close to the Classic Vibe series. Hey, it's a $300 guitar so I can't complain. The only thing that needed to be addressed on VM Jazzmaster was that the concentric knobs were a bit sticky. In other words, if you rolled back on the tone you would also roll back on the volume. Not sure if this was an issue with my particular guitar, but saturating the knobs with Contact Cleaner fixed the issue considerably.
Incidentally, I got a chance to mess with the Fender Blacktop Jaguar as well (although I wish they had a Blacktop Jazzmaster I could have tried) and although it too departs quite a bit from the original Jaguar design, it's a very nice guitar for the price. The neck feels nice and the frets are nicely dressed. Got to look at a Fender Blacktop Tele too and even though the Blacktops don't come with gig bags and are priced l$50 bucks less than the Mexican Standards, they seem to have better fit and finish than the Mexican Standards. Say what you will about Fender, but I have to applaud them for releasing such cool looking and playable guitars at prices that anyone can afford.
