From my experiences the basic level of every Fender level seems to be worse than the deluxe version of the one below i.e. Squier VM range is better than MIM basic, MIM Classic is better than HWY1 etc but it comes down to tastes and individual models. People do tend to rave about MIJ / CIJ and having played a few / owned a few I can see why. I do find the MIM Classics rival them though these days