Front routed Guitars. Why?

[inmyhands]

I was just wondering. Why aren't all guitars rear routed? Warmoth can rear rout Strat and Tele bodies. Pickups can be direct mounted with springs or rubber tubing to adjust their height. Just because a guitar is rear routed doesn't mean it can't have a pickguard if that's the look you desire.

A rear rout lets you have access to the electronics without having to remove the strings and guard. A rear rout wouldn't remove any more wood than a front rout. A rear rout would allow a guitar to be capped easier, (as Gibson does with maple).

Actually, I can't think of anything that would make a front rout better or easier to manufacture once the "tooling" has been set up at the factory. A lot of guitar "tops" have wonderful grain patterns that are really knocked down or thrown off balance when a pickguard is applied. If all guitars were generically rear routed the manufacturer could finish the piece, check out the top, and only apply pickguards to guitars that benefit from it's application. The "Super Tops" would be left free of a pickquard unless specifically ordered that way.
What do you think? What's to be gained from the technique of top routing a guitar?

 

[inmyhands]

gts, that's what I'm talking about. Very nice.

 

[Rocky]

I think pickguards can look really nice. Not everyone likes figured wood...I personally think that since the proliferation of photo flame and veneer maple tops are getting REALLY cheesey.

I have a couple guitars I bought during this 'maple craze' but now I avoid figured tops like the plague.

 

[ylo]

Top routing: easier guitar production and assembly using vertical milling, separate assembly of pickups / pickguard, easy drop in without flipping the guitar over. The traditional Tele & Strat methods. Note that early Fenders were considered cheap "planks" by Gibson lovers.

Rear routing: looks nicer (IMHO) if the guitar has nice wood. Early Gibsons were acoustic, semi-acoustic, or descended from these. They cost more than the Fenders to produce.