This pickup set was recommended to me by a friend, who basically said "if you don't know what to install, install these" (i was looking to upgrade muffled-sounding stock pickups). They are basically a classic combination, and it's for a good reason - these are perfectly matched and sound awesome in your average single-cut guitar.
Just about the only thing that i can complain about is that they're a bit too big to fit in the pickup cavities of my Asian-made LP copy, so i'll have to drill those off to make more room at some point.
The "hot rodded" thing is perhaps a misnomer in this day and age since these aren't actually all that hot - compared to modern "hot" pickups these are quite polite. However, they have just enough bite and clarity to rock on all but perhaps extreme levels of distortion, but the neck pickup also has great clean sounds.