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the look of screws DOES change the tone. Try a Guitar Jones (may he rest in.....peace, maybe...) bucker pole screw, then replace it with any of the ones I"ve had made. The GJ screws have tiny heads and barely a slot in them, the ones I use have big heads and big slots, just the physical proportions make the two sound radically different. A stainless steel P90 soap bar mount screw and a steel one change the tone in the pickup, and usually they will look different, the vintage type ones have round heads and the modern ones have flat tops.
STock guitars from the big names Fender and Gibson almost always have vintage type pickups, vintage replicas they're not, I'm not talking boutique pickup makers here I'm talking the whole picture, the entire industry, the vintage types I am sure outnumber EMG or any of the engineer techy types. Look at bands like White Strips, they're rediscovering vintage guitars and pickups and doing cool things with them. Basically all of it is regurgitated music, every star God guitar player got there by learning from the masters that preceded him. I like jump blues players like Watson etc. its like SRV, he took something old and made it even better and made it his own. I don't think there is any truly original music, its all been done before. I like space music, but really that stuff came from movie tracks and was expanded on. I don't know why you are so disturbed by craftsmen studying the old arts of pickup making and keeping them alive, should we quit making violins and harpsichords because they are vintage instruments, all they are doing is playing stuff over and over that was written hundreds of years ago, does it have to be new and original to be good? I just think that the vintage types of pickups will always be around and will be the mainstay of the guitar market for a long time to come. I like doing vintage type pickups because there are very few actually doing them right, the way they were actually done. Builders don't seem to see whats in front of them when studying a vintage pickup, they miss all the details that create those tones, it took me years to learn how to really look at these old artifacts. PUtting a stewmac kit together does nothing to get you there. So thats my niche and I enjoy it and my customers come back for more. Even my unique designs are tributes to the past, thats why, like you, I study patents because those guys had reasons for what they did, and that stuff is fascinating to read....
the look of screws DOES change the tone. Try a Guitar Jones (may he rest in.....peace, maybe...) bucker pole screw, then replace it with any of the ones I"ve had made. The GJ screws have tiny heads and barely a slot in them, the ones I use have big heads and big slots, just the physical proportions make the two sound radically different. A stainless steel P90 soap bar mount screw and a steel one change the tone in the pickup, and usually they will look different, the vintage type ones have round heads and the modern ones have flat tops.
STock guitars from the big names Fender and Gibson almost always have vintage type pickups, vintage replicas they're not, I'm not talking boutique pickup makers here I'm talking the whole picture, the entire industry, the vintage types I am sure outnumber EMG or any of the engineer techy types. Look at bands like White Strips, they're rediscovering vintage guitars and pickups and doing cool things with them. Basically all of it is regurgitated music, every star God guitar player got there by learning from the masters that preceded him. I like jump blues players like Watson etc. its like SRV, he took something old and made it even better and made it his own. I don't think there is any truly original music, its all been done before. I like space music, but really that stuff came from movie tracks and was expanded on. I don't know why you are so disturbed by craftsmen studying the old arts of pickup making and keeping them alive, should we quit making violins and harpsichords because they are vintage instruments, all they are doing is playing stuff over and over that was written hundreds of years ago, does it have to be new and original to be good? I just think that the vintage types of pickups will always be around and will be the mainstay of the guitar market for a long time to come. I like doing vintage type pickups because there are very few actually doing them right, the way they were actually done. Builders don't seem to see whats in front of them when studying a vintage pickup, they miss all the details that create those tones, it took me years to learn how to really look at these old artifacts. PUtting a stewmac kit together does nothing to get you there. So thats my niche and I enjoy it and my customers come back for more. Even my unique designs are tributes to the past, thats why, like you, I study patents because those guys had reasons for what they did, and that stuff is fascinating to read....
BE the vintage, SEE the vintage, MAKE vintage reproductions, grasshopper 
I've tried alot of the so called improved pickups, the noiseless stuff, EMG was my client for 12 years and tried all their stuff, the most impressive pickups I've tried have always been the old stuff, the musicality of those designs outshines the high tech ideas for me. I'm also not a big fan of modern type basses, one of the best ones I've heard for blues is the old Harmony semi-acoustic type the host uses at the jam, but then there's NOTHING that beats an upright bass, thats my idea of killer bass tones. 'Scuse me while I go lay another dinosaur egg, I guess......
But then for fun instead of making P90's the way I learned from Jason's book I got the baseplates and keeper and made one, and I was SOLD. That thing sounded way better to me. Personally I think anyone who seriously wants to make pickups should study the old masters first and really try to do what they did back then. It will teach you soooooo much you won't get any other way. Learn to make single coils first or you won't understand buckers very well, which are hugely complex in comparison. I recently cloned another vintage type bucker set and damn if I didn't learn a whole bunch of new stuff from doing that. 
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