I beg to differ. If you have an artist with such idiosyncratic tuning,
Bill Kelliher (born March 23, 1971) is a musician from Atlanta, Georgia, best known as rhythm ... one whole step, C G C F A D), and another tuning similar to D standard, but with the sixth string tuned down to A (A G C F A D), on the Explorer.
then you either get it right or don't bother. The kids who buy his signature Explorer want it to sound like him.
What he writes does indeed remind me of what Hetfield said about Metallica's slated collaboration with Gibson not working, ESP OTOH has a reputation of bending over backwards to please their endorsers.
Mastodon has quite a reputation and popularity, they are sort of in a no-man's-land of 2nd generation proggish nu-metal, but have their ardent followers and always get good reviews in the scene mags.