Burstbucker wired wrong from factory?

I spoke about this in another thread but this is probably the best place to ask- I just got an Epi Joe Bonamassa Les Paul, it's stock with a Burstbucker 2 in the neck and 3 in the bridge. I absolutely love the pickups, but I realized immediately that they were wired out of phase (you know the thin plunky tone when both are engaged). So I assumed it was wired wrong at the factory, but upon looking at the cavity I discovered that the pickups came this way, braid and hot lead were wired correctly (but they are actually out of phase). So I reversed the wires on the bridge pickup, but of course as the actual braid is not insulated, it's noisy and cannot make contact with anything hot because it shorts out. I know I can just use heat shrink tubing and insulate the whole braid, which is what I plan to do. But isn't this just a defective pickup? Most people don't want that Peter Green thing, and I've seen demos of the Joe Bonamassa online and they're not wired out of phase. What's the dealio?