That would make it darker but it's a different type of tone altogether - i'm trying to make the tone from my bridge pickup less trebly, but thanks for the suggestion.
It should not affect the output, but you will probably loose some treble. I have a Jagmaster with hot Jazzmaster pickups (neck 8400 and 9400 bridge) and I have 500K pots and it's plenty loud.
Wouldn't wiring in a cap to cover the distance between a 1meg pot and a 250k (or 500k or 300k) pot do the same thing as swapping out the pots themselves? It'd certainly be easier.
I don't mean a new cap for the tone pot, I mean one permanently to ground from the regular (no-rhythm) circuit.
Thanks for the suggestion but I know nothing of electronics so have no idea how to do what you suggested. I can however change a pot as it is just a matter of soldering the wires from one pot to the same place on the other pot - even I can do that.