another thing about whammy bars... yes, in most cases you can take them off very easily, but somthing that I use to do a lot (even when the floating whammy bar wasnt screwed in) would be to accidently press too hard (or accidently press my wrist against the actual floating device) causing it to briefly make the notes your playing all go sharp. This shouldnt discourage you from checking out guitars with whammy bars though, because after spending some time with your guitar, you probably wont ever run into this problem. It just takes a little time to get use to the feeling.
Theres also more then one kind of whammy bar, you probably already knew that though. :)