If it's any help to you, I live in the UK and purchased a JTV89 recently from a batch of half a dozen or so that a local music store had as 'B' stock i.e. customer returns or slightly flawed in some way. All that I could find wrong with it was some very minor lacquer missing from the slightly raised section on the body and the machine heads were a little tarnished. Apart from that, in my humble opinion it is a great instrument with an excellent neck, biting pick ups and really playable. Depending of course on your flavour, this was meant to be a shredders guitar so maybe not to everyone taste BUT, when you switch in the Variax models and tuning options, I doubt you'd tell the difference whether you were playing a '59, '69 or the 89! I suppose it's down to your instrument of choice.
I got it for a good price, at least £300 off RRP of a perfect '89 so I was pleased.
Maybe there were some issues with the 89 but I'm more than happy with mine as it only had some minor cosmetic damage that doesn't affect the playability.
Chris