I probably have been quite scathing of Gibson's CS in the past, and with good reason, ranging from them knowing diddly squat about things they don't manufacture any more to being outright ignored.
Anyway, scroll forward to recent times - my EB suddenly became unwell at band rehearsal with a big volume drop. After erroneously blaming the amp and fiddling with it and cursing at it, I finally worked out that the volume returned if the bridge pickup was soloed.
Only a couple of months of warranty left, and figuring it was a wiring oops I took matters into my own hands and took it to my own tech. Unfortunately, he informed me that it would seem the neck pickup had gone bad. Oops.
Was going to get it rewound (seeing as the bobbins are only glue gunned in place, not entombed in epoxy), but I got in touch with Gibson anyway and told them my warranty voiding tale of woe. To my astonishment, a very friendly chap called Boris offered to send me a replacement pickup "as a courtesy" (which I think is code for "don't void your warranty again, you silly boy"
). A week later, it arrived. I fitted it and everything's back to normal (or it will be when I replace an earth wire I forgot about!)
Anyway, just wanted to say it's not all doom and gloom, I'm very grateful to Gibson for digging me out of a hole and I hope to have more of these positive experiences in the future.