Hmm, ears checked, yes. You know, I often find that it's a lot more efficient to try every possible combination of pickup, guitar, strings, pots, cables, and amplifiers rather than understanding basic principles of how magnet strength, inductance, and output impedance interact with following components to create different tones.
To make it really simple: whether or not you will like the 498 depends on a) what your tonal preferences are and b) how you have it loaded. Personally, I don't like hot pickups, but again, it doesn't particularly matter, I can still use them. But it's easier to shed highs or create resonances after the fact rather than trying to reverse said process. And of course gain is cheap and easy downstream where it doesn't come at the cost of output impedance.
Therefore, the best reason to swap pups is because you don't like the way they look. For example, I bought an Epi Airscreamer that had EMG HZs stock. Thankfully, the HZs are passive, but they are still EMGs and therefore very ugly. And they were supposed to represent the windows on the Airstream. Black = window fail. So I bought some no-name clear bobbin pickups, which look perfect as windows. Best of all, I sold the HZs for more than the no-names cost me.
Anyway, I would suggest getting the 490R with a gold cover and the 498T uncovered (which is brighter), that way your guitar will look as crunk as possible
Like you have one gold tooth and one tooth that got punched out
Also, I would reverse them, R in bridge and T in neck, just to confuse your audience, who of course can hear the difference because you only play for crowds who bring their audiologist's test reports.
In fact, reversing neck and bridge pickups has been scientifically proven to result in a 13% increase in drunk guys in the mosh pit raising their fists and yelling "fukk yeah!"
Except on Telecasters, it doesn't work quite as well there . . .
