My main gigging bass at the moment is a natural VM Jazz which I had a set of EMG X pickups installed and a battery box fitted in the back. There's a few minor finish flaws on the neck but only very minor (a bit of a side dot is missing and you can feel the join with the strip down the back of the neck). But it's a mass produced bass that I bought mail order and for the money I love it. It plays great, sounds great with the EMGs and if anything happened to it cheap to replace. I personally wouldn't want to take a £1300 American jazz to some of the pubs I play at.
I'm currently looking at getting the Deluxe V active jazz bass as I want an active 5 string jazz with full size jazz body, jazz string spacing and 4+1 tuners on a traditional style headstock. The Deluxe ticks all the boxes and the price tag doesn't scare the wife.