I have a couple of the older Schecters, a 1999 C7+ and a 2003? 2005? Damien 7. The first is set up as my favorite slide guitar, the second I keep around more for writing and "thinking" on. The ultra-thin necks are sort-of a mistake, I think. It really doesn't mean faster, just one of those weird trends that started selling lots of guitars for Ibanez. I'm surprised Schecter bowed to the pressure, because the bigger necks were their selling point, really. Jeff Loomis & John Petrucci managed to get up a bit of speed on 'em, anyways. I had a Japanese (=good) Ibanez RG7620 that I got first, then built a Warmoth (too-thin-neck, and no options). Then I got the Schecters and sold the Ibby.
In any case, your thumb absolutely has to be in back of the neck to play wide and/or flat necks, not curled over the top. So there's nada leverage for really big bends, it turns into an either-or situation. And the people who mix them well, like John Petrucci, have worked really hard on that specific problem. You'll never run into somebody who can do all the sneaky inside-the-chord bends like Jerry Donahue doing it in the middle of a shred. And you just can't hang them at knee height and expect to be able to get around the neck to the lowest strings.
And when you think about inadequate hand size as an excuse for not playing well, you can dig up a whole list of monster-handed people like Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen, John McLaughlin; and the atomic spider/king crab variants like Steve Vai and Paul Gilbert. WAAH! So there! That's why I can't play well... But then somebody might point out that a large number of great guitarists have perfectly ordinary hands. And then if they wanted to be annoying they could point out people like Shawn Lane with his tiny little stubby sausage fingers or Danny Gatton with his tiny little stubby sausage fingers. And you'd need a new excuse...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBKnYrwIP0o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS5XH84mmI4
My dog ate my guitar pick.... thirty years ago! :sad1:
One thing I did start noticing when my carpal started tunneling was that the old guys who had been playing very well for a long time, and were still playing very well - Jeff Beck, John McLaughlin, Steve Morse etc. - never, ever, ever went after the giant spiderfinger stretches - always skipping strings or jumping up positions instead. All that magical "3-nps" and "4-nps" talk on the shred sites eats tendons. I also noticed that those kind of guys weren't BBQ-fat or cocaine-skinny, went to sleep at night, didn't drink their dinner, did eat their vegetables etc. Probably remembered their mother-in-law's birthday too fer pete's sakes.....