Gearhead
I am not convinced by the bending story :-\ can't one see the joint as an acoustic filter and take it from there?
Another element that goes missing in this story is that the compression of the bolts causes a local density increase, which should speed up the sound around the joint. This is not the case with a neck through or a set neck. I have always thought that this would be a plausible explanation for bolted Strats and Teles being brighter than set neck variants. One should be able to test in a similar setup as described, glueing a bolted neck in with the bolts at full torque, measuring, subsequently taking them out and remeasuring.
