Those are great guitars. I think I got mine used for $175. The stock pickups sound pretty good to me.
I had to replace the tape on mine as well. Found it on ebay for $11 if I remember correctly.
I took the tape off mine so I could repaint it and never bothered replacing it. It's purely cosmetic on these guys, but it used to hide the join in the body on the old Masonite ones.
The stock pickups are decent and gnarly, so give them a try for a bit before totally dismissing them.
The GFS pickups are probably a decent upgrade, but honestly not entirely necessary. Danos are one of the few guitars where two pickups instead of just a single bridge pickup actually works because the middle position puts them both in series, which gives you a boost in output and is probably one of the greatest guitar sounds ever.
From what I understand the sock danos are quite low out put, I tend to think low out pickups sound brilliant when played loud, but you have to turn up to get maximum jangle out of them. The GFS ones are wound a bit hotter or at least two of them are, so I suppose that gives you more options.
I've got two of the strat sized GFSs in my orange bullet and they sound great, so if you are not happy with the vintage danos I can certainly recommend them.
Stock Dano pickups are great; they're meant to be low output, that's the point of them. You get lovely jangle and twang, including a neck pickup tone that in my opinion is second only to the Jazzmaster, plus, as Watts has pointed out, the surprisingly firebreathing middle position. I wouldn't worry about changing them out, and if you do, I definitely wouldn't up the output.
Is there not a pretty decent chance that the reissue and pickups are the exact same model as the ones being sold by GFS? I thought GFS's deal was buying stock or slightly modified pickups from the same chinese factories that dano/squier/epiphone/everbody else gets theirs from.
My brother has a 56-U2 reissue and I have a 56-U2 Pro. The Pro has a higher output lipsticks that the originals or the first RI's. I think I remember liking the sound of the lower output pups better, but that is from memory, have not done a side by side since I worked on his a couple years ago.
Stuart wrote:From what I understand the sock danos are quite low out put
whoops.
Not saying that I would change them. In fact I'd almost certainly keep them but then I play through either a twin reverb at drummer matching levels or through a cranked Pro Jr. Horses for courses and all that, in fact of the two GFSs I've got in my bullet I like the neck better which is the cooler of the two and I sort of wish I hadn't bothered with a hotter bridge.
whoops. 
