Thanks man -
Regarding the failure of the 83's in the market - Dan Smith himself stated in a lengthy interview that "...if we'd gotten the tremolo right, the '83 would still be the Standard Strat today".
I've got five electric guitars as of this morning - only one, a cheap Strat, has more than one tone knob - dual tone knobs isn't something I've ever really missed. The pickups in the 83-84's are decent - they capture a fairly complex & articulated sound, and the beefier weight that most owners report for those years (including the "elite" models) gives the pups even more to work with (though I'd certainly like to hear my axe with some Kinmans or Antiquities!) My 84 is the most "solid" feeling guitar of any non-gibson I've owned and has that "well built" feeling you get from a 70's Les Paul or SG. It's kinda hard to define, but play a couple other guitars and pick up the Strat, and you suddenly think "wow, I'm playing a grown-up guitar now".
Smith's take on the Freeflyte bridge was that it went to production too fast; the baseplate attaches to the mechanism along a knife-edge that transfers tone well, but with only string tension holding things together, he felt the parts slid around to much (I've never had trouble with mine, even in some crazy whammy periods of my playing). It's also hard to setup (off comes the strings and pickguard), it has a smaller block, and it just doesn't deliver as much of that subtle "spring reverb" sound a Strat should have.
That's the biggest problem with owning these today - if that Trem breaks (and they do, the main mechanical part is cast and known to crack) there are no parts around to fix it. I emailed the Skyway guy but never heard back, and have yet to find a workable replacement - routing the back for a modern trem is out of the question, as there's not enough wood with the deeper pickup rout. Supposedly you can mount one of the big & clunky locking-style trems, but man, who wants to mess with the locking nut these days?
Anyway - still looking, though I may eBay this one eventually - I have mixed feelings about modding a guitar that's this pristine after a quarter century... we'll see.