Well, my local shop finally got a Coronado in and I had a go of it at the weekend. It was ... OK. For a start, I find it hard to get the "short scale == toy" mentality out of my head but I tried to do so. Certainly looked great, couldn't really fault the finish, not too thick (I seem to remember the Modern Player Tele bass I tried seemed to have about an inch of finish on it - an exaggeration for sure but it felt like the bass was made of finish and not wood, you know?), nice cherry burst. Pickups were as I expected - having a Cabronita P I am already acquainted with the Fideli'tron pickup. Sweet top end, plenty twang if you want it but no slouch in the low end either. A decent amount of cut available on the tone controls. Good interaction between the pickups - the characters of neck and bridge dovetailed well for a change instead of serving to cancel each other out.
One thing I noticed was that with both pickups on, the volume controls became like master volume - turn one down and it turns off the entire bass (and not on a very graceful taper either) - is this how they're wired or is it a fault with the one I tried?
Don't think I'll get one. It just didn't wow me enough to drop nearly £700 on one (yes, that's UK street price - circa $1100). Like I said at the beginning, it was ... OK, good even, but didn't click with me. Would still like to try a Starcaster bass at some point, for reference if nothing else.