Truth from seay.james.

It hadn't occurred to me to mention the different finishes of maple. My Tele neck and fingerboard is unfinished satin BTW, as are most of my necks. I prefer my necks that way.

That was one of the two predominent reasons I chose the Pacifica 311H with the satin neck over the 611H's traditional finished gloss neck and modified the bridge PUP to a TB-14. Interestingly, seay.james prefers a finished maple fingerboard, which of course usually also means a finished neck. Referred to by convention or tradition as varnished, in actuality it's likely these days to actually be a polyurethane clear coat, a finishing product which dries to be as tough as nails. All this shows is that there is no right or wrong. Feel is an individual preference.

[br]As for variation in tone attributable to the selection of specific woods.

Tonal differences have now even been objectively demonstrated to be a prejudicial myth. Here's the evidence, conducted about as objectively and scientifically as it ever will be. Note the blind test result when preconditioned notions are hobbled. The result is the same as it would be on chance guessing.