She mentions that the Thunderbird is "purpose driven for hard rock and metal". While I do admit that it might not be the first choice for reggae 'driven' music ( but who knows, depends on your approach). I certainly used mine for r'n b styles for many years. I recently saw a classical guitar quimtet consisting of 2 classical guitars, a violin, a cello and lo and behold a bassist using a Thunderbird. The bassist was sitting in the classical guitar hold position playing his TBird ( flatwound strings) through a gallien Krueger MB150 amp and he fir right in and the over all sound was glorious and they were doing a bach recital.
The TBird became a symbol for harder rocking music over time, JAE, Overend Watts, Pete Way, Martin Turner and Nikki Sixx all had to do with that. But it was initially, in 1963 together with the companion guitar Firebird, aimed at mature players playing serious music.
And it was priced accordingly. Plus the neck-thru-construction and maho wood still give testimony that the instrument was not so much aimed at an aggressive sound, but a musical tone. A TBird tone never gets in the way. And while with the right amp you can make a TBird sound aggressive too, it won't provide you with the nasty cut-thru tone a P Bass can even over a less than decent rig. The guy who sold me his Bicentennial remarked, "This needs a good rig to show its strengths, but a P Bass will sound like a P Bass over anything".
Same thing with the Firebird, that never gained the popularity of Gibson's set neck guitars or Fender's bolt-on guitars either because the Firebird was perceived as docile compared to a Les Paul or Strat. Maybe it's just more musical and less an "axe".