The positive one: isn't that just part of the homespun Rickenbacker charm?
Its a bit like British aviation engineering. When they tried to upgrade the ageing Nimrod fleet of aircraft into the MRA4 variant, they were essentially bodging micro-engineered wings onto a fuselage built on wooden jigs in the '60s. Amazingly the wings didn't match the fuselage because each one was subtly different; a few inches here or there.
I guess Rickenbacker basses are made, to some degree, by eye. The bridges don't always sit on the centre line because they are mounted with the instrument strung to make sure the alignment is good at the end of the neck? I'm not sure, but I have a small amount of 4000 GAS after watching Stanley Clarke playing a Jetglo one in an early Return to Forever video a few weeks back.
