Dude - thanks for the thoughts and info.
I think I'm over the birth year thing. I was born in 1985, which put the company in a really weird period of time in terms of transition and production - I've seen some 85s with Norlin era features and some without, so I guess that truly was the year it changed. Plus the custom I found was in decent shape, but the dude wouldn't come off of 3k, and I'm just not going to pay that much for one.
After losing out on that 89 Standard yesterday, I have been looking at the Japanese guitars again. I need to do more research on Burny and Greco to see what the better years (no chambering or pancakes) were, especially with Burny since they couldn't be bothered to put fucking serial numbers on their guitars half the time. If I get a custom, I'd really like an ebony board, but outside of newer Edwards stuff, I haven't been able to find one. I've done some limited research and have been looking mostly at guitars coming out of the fujigen factory since they were building for Gibson at the time - any other factories that are as highly regarded that I should be looking for?
I know rationally that I can spend around 1,200 and have a killer guitar, and put the other 800 to good use elsewhere. But then there are things like this 08 Gibson Custom that popped up locally for 2k that I might go play this week....