staggered and level pole pieces

What I find listed as specs at Fender is 9-1/2"R. on the Clapton Strat. That's not that much flatter than 7-1/4"R.

I think Fender was making Strat pickups with flat polepieces long before they adopted the 9-1/2"R. fretboard.

IMO staggered Strat pickups are better for the low power vintage style pickups.

 

Jason Lollar will make them either way but told me he likes the flat poles much better, especially with modern string sets and a flatter radius. I have a set of his Blackface strat pickups and they are flat. Some pickup winders use a hybrid stagger that is more fitting with modern trends. A traditional vintage stagger used with an unwound "G" string set, regardless of the radius, will be out of balance.

 

Flat poles should balance better from string to string. I still prefer the staggered just because the non-staggered just does not look right. The different balance does not bother me.

Some pickups have an exaggerated stagger, like Fenders and others, like Duncans are much less extreme.

 

Staggered poles* are more a design characteristic to compensate for the wound thirds used when these guitars were first made. If you don't use a wound third flatploles are fine for most guitars. On the other hand, that prominent third string is sort of a stratocaster signature tone.

*vintage staggers, some pickups made today have modified staggered poles for the string sets commonly used today.

 

plenty of makers do a stagger that actually works for modern strings and fretboard radii. (duncan isn't one of them, and for the life of me i can't understand why.)
look at fralin's hybrid stagger option, or suhr's v-60, or the dimarzio area series. the idea is to boost the D string a little, as it tends to be the weakest output string on modern string sets.

 

Better to look good than to sound good?
BTW, you look maahvelous!