You guys. YOU GUYS.
So, I traded in my 7-string. It was fun, but I'm just too used to 6-strings to make the most of it. Also the pickups really did sound like ass.
Acting on a hunch, though (Ibanez Japan build quality + good pickups must = good guitar, right?) I traded it in for one of these:
Holy shit guys, new favorite metal guitar. Yeah yeah it doesn't have a neck pickup, WHATEVER. The body's basswood, the neck's maple/rosewood and it's got a Floyd Rose, so tonally this guitar shouldn't be anything special but HOLY GOD THE SOUND. It's pretty loud unplugged, which is always a good sign for an electric. Build quality's top notch, playability is RIDICULOUS. Super wide, super skinny neck profile. I haven't beaten the fuck out of the trem yet but preliminary results indicate it's nice and stable. The weird zero-point trem system is really easy to adjust- there's just a little knob you can twist through the backplate to adjust the tension, kind of like on a Parker Fly. I had the guitar dialed down from standard to drop-C in under five minutes, with no tools.
I don't know how Seymour Duncan does it but all their pickups I've tried have this insanely pretty shimmer in the upper-mids that sounds so good to my ears. This is obviously meant to be a chugga-chugga-weeeee guitar but when I first plugged it in I spent a good 20 minutes just on the clean channel of my amp, it sounded so nice. It's a "full shred" which is a stupid name for a pickup, but whatever- it's got a little less low-end than a JB, but with a resulting clarity and attack that makes it really sparkle.