IME, as soon as you put it in print people feel it's official, and when you have to say "no" they get upset. All that explaining has the potential to become a drain on customer service resources and time (to be honest, they are probably already hating me for this video) and ruins the customer experience.
The off-menu stuff will likely stay just that.
FYI, there are generally three reasons why off-menu stuff is off-menu:
- They require materials that are not readily available, and thus can't be made a standard offering. An example of this would be crackle paintjobs. We're not going to buy a bunch of that stuff for one order. In other cases supplies have become so scarce that we are unsure we will ever get more of it....ever....so we mete it out very slowly. E.g. certain wood species like Koa.
- They are too difficult to incorporate into the custom builders. E.g. headstock paint. Over 125 colors, combined with the conditional logic of the various neck back finishes AND all the options that would effect which colors would be available, like binding or fretboard wood. It's not possible/sustainable to program that and keep it working correctly.
- They are dependent on our production resources at the time the request is made. E.g. if you request some kind of custom paint thing when the paint department is already slammed we will likely say no. Other times, yes.