1) is there a functional difference between 1 and 3 piece maple necks? What about 5 piece maple/walnut necks?

2) Why does the neck on the RG350DX look like the frets stick out past the edge of the neck? (see this pic from Ibanez.com: link) The non DX models don't appear to have that issue (example pic, RG350MP: link). Is that just a bad picture or do the frets really stick over the edge? These guitars are all the same price so why would they get different quality neck?

edit - every ibanez.com link I post here gets replaced with ****s, so I guess I'll just host and link the pics in question instead:

RG350DX with frets that stick past the edge of the neck:




RG350MP with smoother looking frets:

The DX has white binding, which makes it look like the frets are sticking out.

The multi piece necks are supposedly stronger, I cannot tell you whether or not this is true, but I have played them all and they all play great.

I have a wide variety of Ibanez guitars, and have played dozens more - I haven't played an Ibanez neck that I wouldn't mind playing all the time.

Oh, so you're saying it's the same color as the background so it doesn't show up in that pic and makes it look like the frets stick out too far.

If so, good. That looked really bad I dig the shark tooth inlay so I was hoping it was the same quality as the rest.

Yep that's all it is - an optical illusion because of the white binding. I have an RG with this exact neck on it. Good playing neck. I did recently upgrade it to a Jem neck though & am considering selling the RG neck... Good neck though!

Yeah, you can see the white binding down where the neck meets the body. It's just a bad choice of a background for the "enlarge" pic.
If the Wizard 3 is like the old Wizard 2 the maple board version without the binding is an awesome neck! Very comfortable!