A fretting-out tale

I've recently started practicing through an amp (went unplugged before, since the amp was a little distracting). A tune I'm working on has a lot of full-step bends, including a neat little thing where the top of the bend is hit and then the note is pulled down a quarter-step for stinging nastiness. Pulled out the Logan Strat to try through the amp, and noticed that the volume went way down at the top of the bend and that the quarter-step drop was dang near inaudible. Check the neck tension, 'twas fine. Raised the action a teensy bit (I like it at Fender standard 1/16" at 8th fret with first and last frets blocked), no help. Since the bend pulls the string away from its associated pickup core on the neck bridge, I thought maybe the middle/bridge selection might help. It did, a little, but still not great.

So I grabbed the Esquire and tried it out. Same thing! Checked tension and action, made adjustments, tried again, not much better. Then, pretty much by accident, I picked the string close to the pickup instead of the middle region of the pickguard. Perfect. Tried it on the Strat, also perfect (although that volume knob is in exactly the wrong place). I had no idea the plectrum placement could make such a huge difference! And here I was thinking I'd have to have the frets shaped... whew.

Unplugged, you can't tell it's going on, so I was slightly freaked out for a bit.