Good morning Strats! I'm not sure if this is a fair comparison but I have the F100-Return Edition. I do not gig it and use it for a wall looker. I finally did a setup on it two evenings ago and here are my impressions. The build quality is outstanding and the neck is also very perfect. I set up very low relief and action. I plugged it in to my twin reverb custom 15 and it covers a broad range of tone. It goes from twang to a nice HB tone. This model has the push/pull tone control for HB splitting. It has the DF vibrato. I am not sure this is how the new F-100 is set up but this one would make a respectable gigger. But with that said it will continue to be a looker on the wall. It has a beautiful Maple cap. It relpaced my Les Paul looker who was demoted to a rack on the floor. If the new F-100 doesn't have the push/pull splitter that could easily be added.
--Darwin