Tom Scholz also graduated from MIT and made most of Boston's electronic equipment.
Golfer, another thing that may be a problem is the bridge. When I first got my Alvarez, it had 14s on it, which are too big for my preferences. So, I bought a set of Elixir 12s and had the same problem. So, I just placed some shims under the bridge to raise it up a hair and it worked out fine.
These shims were very thin pieces of plastic that I cut from a sheet. The sheet was about .5mm thick I think. I just took the bridge piece and traced it, then cut along the line on the inside and cut it out. Took the plastic, slipped it in the bridge and placed the bridge tailpiece over it. Worked like a charm!
Also, as Skilless said, strings pull on the neck and bend it slightly. With the lower guage strings, the bend wouldn't be as great and it may cause the strings to vibrate somewhere along the neck.
A good thing to test to see if there is any fretbuzz is to capo at the first fret, then fret at the twelfth. You should be able to fit a standard 3x5 notecard inbetween the fret and the string. If you cannot do that, you may want to consider raising the action.
And, from what I know, Axle Rose did NOT play guitar.
