Steve, I wasn't trying to show off my mediocre inlay skills but rather to give you some idea of different colors of pearl against different woods. Here are some random thoughts about fretboard inlay that I've learned from doing a few simple ones
- Dots are by far the easiest, just set a depth stop on a drill press and use a brad point bit. I think dots look "correct" on certain guitars - mostly vintage acoustics and a couple of models of Gibson, but I agree with you that big squares look right on a Lester
- When you excavate the area for the inlay the bottom needs to be flat. If you do it after your fretboard has been radiused your dremel base will follow the radius and the outside part of the hole will be deeper than the center. I have tried taping little pieces of flat stock to the edges of the f/b to create a flat surface, that works but is tricky. I've also tried excavating not quite to full depth and then chiseling the center down, that also is tricky. Your adhesive will partially fill the void but its best to start with a flat surface. In this case the outside edges of the blocks will be standing proud and have to be sanded down.
- If you excavate your channels before you radius it the routing is much easier. (I buy pre radiused f/b's so that isn't an option). Set the pearl to its full depth and sand the radius into the pearl and f/b together
- Pearl sands OK but it is much harder than the wood. It will pick up sanding scratches from aggressive paper, I find that scraping with a box cutter blade removes most of that
- Sand a bit of the parent wood to get a powder and mix that with some slow set epoxy, use that to set your pearl. The epoxy will fill the small gaps and can be sanded and scraped flush with the pearl. This works pretty well with dark wood like ebony or rosewood, with lighter wood the epoxy ends up dark.
- I would recommend against multiple piece inlays (like the parallelograms with the slash across them) . You will have a hard enough time lining up edges and getting that center line looking just right.
- I hold the inlay against the wood and scribe around it with an Xacto knife. I then rub pencil on the outside of the scribe line and carefully route up to the line. I've got a light right behind my router and my best reading glasses on.

- You've heard my rant about deciding on a theme and staying with it. I try to keep the fretboard, head stock, any purfling or rosette on an acoustic, any other little bits all the same. I like the idea of gold MOP with your gold hardware.