Ok, basically, I am a year 12 student who is designing a guitar for my major design project. In my portfolio I am required to show forms of preliminary research, and... What better place. I have got 3 questions to ask, the first is a yes/no answer, mainly to confirm my current findings, the second is open ended to help with designing... you know, making it a guitar designed by the people... that sort of thing. The third is just a people%u2019s opinion. So don%u2019t hold back.... just..... Please don%u2019t hate me Q1. (Y/N)... Gibson Les Paul guitars and guitars similar (excluding Gibson Les Paul Jar) need to be made lighter Q2. What can be added/taken off/changed of the design and function of a Gibson Les Paul guitar to generally improve it Q3. What is the general opinion of the standard fender/Gibson strap buttons? And how could they be improved if necessary thank you for your time, and, I am pretty damn serious about this, the actual guitar is nothing like a Gibson Les Paul, but it is vaguely designed around it. Once this is made, I hope to actually be able to continue making and marketing them... and different guitars.... you never know

don't getting a little off-option, but the first question can't be answered simply by "yes" or "no".Anyway, here's my answers to these questions: 1-Depends on what you want about tone. More wood means more tone, so this is one of the reasons on why a Les Paul have a lot of punch than a strat(eve if the strat have some humbuckers on), less wood, less tone.(this is the main reason on why Ibanez RG guitars have a more mid/high sound than a stratocaster). A Lighter Les Paul will ahve less tone and punch, so depends on you. 2-Basically, for me, these thing: -The neck have to be thinner on back -The neck must have a non-glossy(or painted) finish on the back -The acess of the neck joint have to be improved, so it don't block your hand for full fret board acess on higher registers -It must have a floating bridge(like the Neal Schon signature model) -It must have locking tuners -It must have the buzz feiten or fretwave system, to have a more accurate "all neck tempered tunning" 3-Don't used one, but I suggest you to put something more "reliable" like the Dimarzio Strap Lock Strap or a Dunlop Strap lock. Or some good non-locking ones like Schaller and Gotoh. Well, that's it.