I don't think it needs a refret. I replaced the pre-amp with a very cheap one last year which isn't fantastic, but the bass is only worth a hundred quid at most. I'm better off moving on to a better new bass.
I did put Gotoh machine heads on it which I'd probably fit to a replacement Ibanez.
It's similar to auto tune on vocals. Used on every recording - then when you see a real singer they don't meet expectations.
I think we may already have covered bass players who can play several complex tunes at home in the bedroom along to the recordings, but can't play at a simple blues jam.
That gets very expensive very quickly. Fine if it's your own money, but the record companies aren't going to live with that if it's taking months to record an album.
He does cover that aspect in the SBL podcast. He seemed genuinely concerned about exposing someone wrongly, whether he was doing the right thing, and checking and double checking the facts over several days.
I have just purchased a cheap kit from Amazon on the basis that my 25 year old Ibanez is ready to be retired and just needs a small amount of work to maybe get another few years out of it.