Agreed.
So much of guitar's tone is all about the touch of the guitarist. After all, that's where the true tone and the soul of a guitarist's sound comes from: his or her fingers.
It's why Hendrix still sounded like Hendrix when he played his SG or Flying V. For me though, I tend to like a bit of an attack and a certain midrange character in my guitar's sound, and I just find I can get it out of Gibson stuff much easier for the way I play. But as much as I am a Gibson guy in general, that's certainly not a slight against Fender gear at all. I like many artists who were more famous for playing Fenders. I just can't do what they do with them. I have my own sound though, and I'm happy with that.
And yeah, my food groups tend to be a little fattening (Les Paul, SG, Firebird, humbuckers, P-90's, firebird minibuckers, etc.), but I make do. lol
Huh. I always thought the Deluxe was released in 1969 a year after the initial re-release of the Les Paul Standard in 1968 with its P-90's, but there you go. TBH, I don't think I've ever seen a Deluxe from 1968 before.