somebody had to mention the Carvin!!! now you're all in for it!
Yes, Carvin is a great guitar company. I'm still extrememly happy with my purchase. The craftsmanship is flawless, the frets are perfect, the wood is beautiful. I only wish I took advantage of all their "pretty" features. It's doesn't cost that much to get a high quality flamed maple top from them for instance. But I wanted to stay simple, so I just got the classic white finish.
I don't know the jackson in question, but I do know the MII sort of. I have an LTD Deluxe M-1000 which is about the best non REAL ESP there is. I would imagine that they are very simlar except that the ESP MII is much better made.
My Carvin DC-127 is shaped like an MII, but it is much slimmer. It is not as heavy as the MII due to its slimmer design and the fact that I have swamp ash body sides, instead of alder like on my M-1000, and I believe the MII is alder as well. (The great thing about Carvin is that you get to pick the woods.)
The scale on my Carvin is smaller than the MII and probably the Jackson. (25.5") My carvin is an even 25" which is the same as a PRS. All my guitars before this have been 25.5" and it does take some getting used to. While its a bit easier on the lower notes, it is slightly more crowded on the high notes, and sometimes I overshoot a note and play one fret up from where I intended to hit. But I don't have any problems with crowding or anything like that.
I can't really compare the bridges because my M-1000 is an original floyd rose and my carvin is an FT6, which is a fixed bridge. I've always had floyd type bridges so that took some getting used to as well, but now I love it. You can of course get any Carvin with an original Floyd or a Wilkonsen Trem, I think some models you can get a Tone-o-Matic too.
The one thing you probably won't like is the pickup choice for the Carvin. You can only get Carvin made pickups, and while they're better than most standard pickups, they don't give you the same kind of variety that aftermarket pickup manufacturers do. I have the M22SD in the bridge, which is probably hotter than the DiMarzio Tone Zone and has more bite to it. In the neck I have the H22N (holdsworth) which is a very nice pickup. I do everything but heavy rythm with the holdsworth pickup. The coil splitters enable you to get a single coil like sound from either pickup. And I use that frequently for clean tone or stuff that is lightly overdriven.
It's hard to buy a guitar without being able to try it. I wish I would've tried my M-1000 before I bought it (I got that from music123.com). It sounds good (EMG 81's) but the playability is complete crap compared to most of my guitars. The action on my Carvin was perfect out of the box as was everything else. BTW, the standard fingerboard wood of Carvin is ebony, which may or may not appeal to you. To me, I can't really tell the difference, I think the tone is a little brighter with ebony, but as far as feel goes, I know that the ebony wood is denser and harder, but I never feel the wood anyway, I always get jumbo frets so my fingers never come in contact with the wood really. At this point in time though, I don't think rosewood is even an option for Carvin. Either Ebony, maple, or bird's eye maple (very pretty wood).
With Carvin, you really have a ton of options to choose from: inlays, fret size, bridge type, hardware color, body wood, neck wood, fingerboard wood (limited choices), pickup configuration, number of splitters, phase switch, headstock type/wood. If you are happy with the body styles that they offer, you can really make a guitar however you want it. I do recommend them, because of the quality of their work and the price at which it is available to you. They stand by their products. If it comes to you and you aren't completely happy you can send it back. (10-day trial). You will have to pay to ship it back though, so keep that in mind. If you're like me though, you won't even think of shipping it back.
Y'all had enough yet or should I keep going?
Just had to add one more thing about ESP. I do rag on my M-1000 because I paid $700 for it and my carvin only cost $70 more. To me, those guitars should be comparable in quality. But they are not. The M-1000 is not even close to the Carvin. The Carvin is more comparable to a guitar that costs twice or three times as much. The M-1000 is comparable to a guitar that costs $300. The only difference is that it has EMG 81's and the original floyd. For $700, the craftsmanship is shitty. It was in serious need of a fret job right out of the box. And I haven't done it yet because the Carvin is keeping me happy, so I just forget about it. The other thing I would need to do to the LTD M-1000 is strip the paint off the back of the neck. Why the hell a metal guitar has paint on the neck is beyond me. I also hate binding, which it has too.
Anyways,
I'm sure that if I had a REAL ESP M-II I would be giving it nothing but praise. The ESP standard series is truly great. If I were you I'd probably get it without even comparing to the Jackson, but then of course you could get a smokin' Carvin for half the price. And don't worry about the bolt-on thing. Like Yngvai said, the ESP bolt-ons are magnificent. Neck-thrus are overrated and a well crafted bolt-on like the MII can smoke a typical neck-thru anyday.
OK, now have you had enough?
Get back to work!
