Decent Starter Guitar not worth too much investment in Upgrading

I was given this guitar, but not by a person who owned it previously, but by someone who picked it up from the dumpster. It was 2016, and the receipt included in the stock guitar bag indicated that this guitar was bought in 2001 alongside starter kits and amps. I have strong reasons to believe that this was someone's first endeavor of trying out electric guitars before eventually discarding their musical prospects in the trash. Tragic.

So needless to say, this guitar is a starter guitar, albeit at a slightly higher price range (think $300 USD) possible due to it being manufactured in Korea instead of Indonesia or China. Its basswood/maple/rosewood combo renders it the most generic of starter guitars, while its strat style "vintage" tremolo system sets it apart from most other Ibanez guitars, namely those with Ibanez's own variation of the floyd rose. The pickup combo is a standard HSH, with a 5 way toggle to give it a tonal range similar to that of a strat. The pickups are crunchy medium-output PAFs that have a flat sound, not too surprising for this range. The neck is surprisingly bound, giving it a nice aesthetic some may appreciate.

I find it a decent guitar best suited for modern rock and hardly anything else. The sound isn't too "open", in that the pickups appear to compress slightly the signal and tighten the guitar's voice; Flat EQ makes it difficult to shine in lead playing (though the 24 frets does allow a little more access to the high end) but on the other hand it lacks the punch, reducing the aggression that palm muting could have achieved on another guitar.

The neck, as Ibanez's standard approach, is fairly slim and eases fast playing. The finish is also notably durable without being a thick polyester mess - having been in the dumpster, I am surprised how little scratch and wear the finish endured. A little bit of dusting and cleaning and the finish was wiped mirror-clear. This guitar is also fairly light, for those who actively avoid their chiropractors.