I was looking at these a few years back while I was considering including one into a solidbody I was going to build myself.
I picked up one of these same Strats with this system built in and tested it in a shop. I was never totally convinced by it, but I was surprised how reasonable you could make it sound if you did some tweaking.
It didn't really do the job on its own, so first I put it through a TC Bodyrez pedal, definitely helped but wasn't there yet, then I added a 10 band eq pedal and a reverb pedal. One thing that really stood out was how dry the signal will be, much drier even than a UST pickup.
In the 1-person sized test room it was decent but its still clearly not a real acoustic, in the much bigger PA test room when you could actually add some volume and a room big enough where the sound could go somewhere, it was definitely better.
Before I had gone to do that test I had done some internet homework and the general internet consensus was it its downfall was mostly a string issue.
Sadly the shop would not let me restring the guitar with acoustic strings, nor an electric set with a wound G, but I agree this is part of the issue, especially with the warmth which is something you also seem to be missing.
If I was you, and you wanted to use it more frequently as an 'acoustic', try to change the strings over, or at least get a wound G and see if that helps you out. The wound G would affect the way it plays less than entirely changing to acoustic strings but hopefully should add a bit more body to the sound, maybe thats enough, maybe its not.
In the end I never made that solidbody guitar with piezo bridge, my conclusion was that for a 1 song or 'parts of a song' if you have the right pedal/eq setup, its good enough to get you by, but i didn't think you could play a whole sets worth, or replace an acoustic with it, and I have stuck with the "if I need 2 different guitars, take 2 guitars" option, i started building acoustics instead and got addicted to that, oh well.
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David
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