I haven't been around a while (new job that, sadly, doesn't involve copious amounts of time with my guitars), so I apologize if I missed this. I'm also open to the possibility of suffering from diminished mental acuity due to a severe lack of sleep.

Ok, all that said, I swung by the boutique and wasn't able to find the Rickenbacker Compressed Round Wound Strings (medium) in either 12- or 6-string. Have they been discontinued, or are they simply out of stock?

I was wondering the same thing about Round Ground bass strings.

I searched a bit in the forum, and found a few mentions of going to a more industry-standard string configuration. I admit. I'm lazy. I prefer the former string gauges because that's what I'm used to (and, as further proof of laziness, keeps me from having to mess too much with intonation). I see that Pick of the Ricks offers strings in gauges comparable to the older ones, so I'll cast my lot there for now.

Not sure if all this applies to bass strings.

Side note: Cripes, I've been away a long time. I guess I had enough of the older strings on hand that I didn't need to swing by the boutique earlier.