In fact, not even with an acoustic guitar can you get a natural sound out of a pickup.

No kidding. My Martin sounds awful live, and it has a nice fishman pickup under the bridge. I actually run it through my POD to give it compression and a little reverb, but it still sound pretty bad.

So if you're planning on getting a Variaxe or a Roland system with the sole purpose of emulating an acoustic sound,

Naw, not really where I was going. Even if it had the best acoustic sound in the world, I'd feel kind of cheap playing acoustic licks on an electric. I was mostly joking when I talked about doing that earlier. My comment about the D-28 was more pride at playing a "classic" than wanting it to make an electric sound like it.

Never buy a guitar sight unseen.

Yeah, this I know from playing acoustics. You don't think I'd drop 2K+ on a guitar without playing it do you? I'd consider Musician's Friend only if they had a much better deal and if I'd at least tried out the model.

and sometimes using the Line6 amp modeling with a regular guitar

My current project we're doing all the electrics with my buddies strat and my POD and I can say it sounds amazing! My interest in an electric is mostly for live performances, as I'm probably not going to purchase it before the electric guitar tracks are all down for this project.

Anyway, thanks agian for all the information, both Tony and everyone else. I have a lot to think about now.