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Back in the day when I was learning, I struggled with a similar problem. I couldn't understand how my heroes could play things so perfectly. But then my guitar teacher at the time pointed out that the recordings I was listening to were just a snapshot, a capture at that time and that they had played the same part 20 times and just chosen the best version. They weren't perfect at all, they were mostly improvised and just happened to be what the fingers played. When I went to watch some of those players do it live I realised that he was right, they rarely played it like the record, they hadn't listened to it in the same detail I had, they just played it with the same 'feel'. Sounded just as good. Sometimes those 'mistakes' are what defines us as players, otherwise everyone would play in exactly the same way.

Is the joint outlined here really connected..? It's not clear from the photo... If it is, un-solder it, and the one at the other end of the swotch, and swap them over. If the neck p/u then works, but not the bridge one, the switch is faulty. If nothing is changed, the p/u is faulty. There's no issue with any discolouring of pole pieces; they'll work just fine. I'd not bother with that for now; get the p/u issue sorted first. Over to you...

Great, thanks for that. Never occurred to me to do it that way. Can't remember what tab it was.

Perhaps put a multimeter on the pickup leads to make sure it isn’t open circuit? You should be able to read a resistance not dissimilar to the bridge pickup. I’d also resolder all the joints in case there’s a dry joint there. The switch could be faulty too.

You laugh, but I bet that at the back of your mind there's a little voice going "Hmm, I wonder..."

Many years ago, I bought a Breitling Top Time watch. It was a lovely looking thing that kept great time but when you adjusted the hands, there was some "backlash" in the gears and it took about twenty seconds before the hand moved, meaning that the minute hand didn't match the seconds hand. The get around was to set it a third of a minute (20 seconds) past the start point for it to match up when it started to move. Annoyed the doo dah out of me until I educated myself that perfection was nigh impossible! Then I bought a quartz watch! It had a plastic movement and kept better time than the Breitling! Cost? £4.99!