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Originally Posted by Drew
"tradeoff" of a high output pickup? That you get more gain and power, but because you're hitting the amp so hard in a particular frequency range and overdriving those freqencies so much (and thus, as overdrive is essentially a form of compression, basically compressing the rest), you're also focusing your guitar tone in a comparatively narrow frequency range, while with lower output pickups you have to rely more on the amp to provide overdrive, but in turn because you're not really slamming any particular frequency band, you're getting a more balanced, "fuller" tone?
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i don't know if it's necessarily related to the frequency range, but slamming the input of a tube amp definately produces more saturation, which as you say compresses things, and reduces overall headroom.
boosting the levels any place before an amp's distortion stage usually does this, like cranking a pedal in front of the amp or pegging the EQ on a Mark-series Boogie. whereas post-distortion EQ is how most people boost the low-end on high gain sounds.
that's actually why Korn went to a lower output bridge humbucker, the PAF7, in the K7 guitars, according to DiMarzio. they were running so much gain at their amps that high output pickups turned it all to mud. so they went lower output to back off on that input-stage saturation.