Why are you guys so vintage-correct obsessive? When I buy a car of a certain model I expect it to carry the spirit of the original that was first in line,
but I don't expect it to be a slavish replica. Progress and learning from mistakes, fashion elements etc are all good things, I don't want my new Volvo V 70
to be the same car the Volvo 850 (before it was renamed V 70)
was twenty years ago. It's ok if it still has some similarity, but times move on. Today's Levis 501 is not the 501 of the fifties either.
In my book the current TB IV, the SG RI, the Ripper II and Grabber II and now this little Junior are all contemporary (= very gently modified and modernized) versions of old classics. The ultimate test to prove I'm right - bearing in mind that this is the forum of scientific evidence: You could take any one of them, time-tunnel back into a late sixties/early seventies rehearsal room
and no one would not recognize them as what they are, people would perhaps marvel at some "cool new features",
but they wouldn't exactly think that you were an alien from the future bringing along new gadgets.
And for the record: Gibson has never claimed this new Junior to be a faithful reissue, instead what they have said is this:
"The Les Paul Junior DC Bass is the axe for you! By
blending
several elements of traditional Gibson design,
derived
from the slab-bodied Les Paul Junior guitar and the original 1960 EB-0 bass,
among others,
this new model from Gibson USA ..."
It's a new model in a retro look, nothing wrong with that.