A washburn KC70V was my first electric guitar ever, more than 25 years ago. I had many gigs with this guitar, even travelled from germany to NY and played in a small club on broadway. So I have very good associations with this guitar. Even knowing it is a cheap instrument and you can see it has been used lots. Playability and intonation fits fine.
Unfortunately I am not playing this instrument any longer. Other guitars (single cut, strat, tele, prs, ...) have taken over all the jobs, mainly because they are sounding better. The washburn pickups all sound quite thin. The 2 single coils are sounding thin, but fairly ok. The humbucker sounds liveless, split it is absolutely thin. Also none of the combinations sounds really usefull. 25 years ago, this didn't matter to me. But now with other possibilities...
While the guitar has its specialities... it is my only one with a floyd rose, you can turn on/off each pickup via a mini switch, it is my only HSS setup, it has the best fitting case I own.
Thus I would like to "revive" this instrument with new pickups.
I typically prefer the more lower output PUs: e.g. Gibson Burstbucker Pro, DiMarzio Area Series, Fender NoCaster. But I am not so much into brands.
My idea was to give this guitar a style typical somewhat hotter PUs. I also wanted to use the mini switches to allow every pickup to split. As I had problems with the potis already, I would exchange them as well.
I was thinking about Seymout Duncan TB16 turned round to use the hotter coil outside as the single coil. In the middle I wanted to put a SL59-1N and in the front a SJBJ-1N. Wiring should be hum reducing in 2 and 4 single coil setup. I'ld replace the switches for Göldo012 on-off-on. I am not sure of a reasonable function for push/pull potis than any longer, so they would stay global volume and tone, but with new 500k logarithmic potis.
In best case, I have a quite versatile travelling instrument, that combined with the Kemper Floor can go with me to practice and gigs. In worst case I have an instrument which with the hotter humbuckers and the flyod rose can be used for some harder music styles.
Maybe somebody can advice, actually I would invest much more, than the guitar is worth.