What's the deal with that inlay ? We all know that the guitars bearing it (some s540's and r540's as far as I know) were most of the times production models, and nothing on them was custom made. So why did ibanez came up with this inlay ? Was that because special care was given to them (not likely), or was it a big marketing lie ?

My guess is, because they thought it looked cool.

Japanese products of the time would frequently feature text that they thought looked groovy but which lost some of the intended impact when unleashed upon a Western market.

UK broadcaster Jeremy Clarkson once found some car wheels in Japan that had writing around the rim. It read "Just a roller skate Grand Touring. All over the physical ironic power"

It was only found on limited edition guitars at first(which the 540LTD's were),but they (540's)were so popular they became full production models. The custom made inlay was a part of what people liked and stayed until the mid 90's. It can be found on a few Ibanez's through the years,but mostly the 540 series. Remember the 540 series were cutting edge design's that broke a lot of guitar standards and were the joint child of Japan and the US together. Custom designed may of been more of an exceptable term to some of you,though the inlay has been used on J customs and other models in Japan. Ironically most of the custom orders of the 540 series(real custom orders) don't feature the inlay,this leads me to believe that only Japanese made necks scored the inlay if at all.

How is an S540LTD a 'limited edition' guitar if it was in production for at least 10 years (and the R540LTD for about three years which is about half the runtime of the Radius series)?
I tend to believe the 'LTD' or limited meant it had more 'exclusive' features such as a bound fingerboard with sharktooth inlays, but it doesn't say anything about production numbers, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

I asked JD about this years ago and the answer was "The Japanese used the term Custom more to signify "special" than anything Americans would view as "custom""

Like a "j. Custom" .

So goof balls who sell them on flee-bay can put "custom made!" in the auction title, then pretend either through obfuscation or ignorance that they are actually custom made anything.

I had an early square heel 540. It didn't say "custom made" anywhere.

No they introduced those inlays in 1990. And it truly is irritating people are naming the Custom Made inlay in their ads as if it's something special, but what can you do?

Urgh...tell me about it...there are several great guitars that I would like to have bought, but never did because the price was double what it should be, since the advertise said it was custom made, just because of that inlay.