I'll acknowledge that neck wood has an effect on tone.
That's magnanimous of you.
Since I missed the previous discussions that were alluded to, here is a hypothetical. I'm only interested in Yes or No answers. I don't need to rehash anything that has been done before.
I make no promises.
I have two necks, that are made from identical maple or as close as possible. One is a solid neck, i.e. one piece. The other is a three piece neck, although all pieces as maple.
Do people expect to hear a difference based upon which neck is used in otherwise identical solid body guitars?
Do people expect to feel a difference (with the fretting hand)?
Let me get one thing out of the way. For me, it's not about feel in the fretting hand, so the answer to the second question is no.
Concerning the first question, remember that I made no promises RE: yes/no. With that in mind I'll turn the question around and present it this way: Suppose we have an amazing neck that happens to be one piece. Now, suppose I go back in time to when it was just a hunk of wood cut from a tree and I rip it down the middle, flip half around, and glue it back together. Then I make a neck out of it just like the first neck. Obviously, this time it's two pieces instead of one, but otherwise the same.
Would people expect that:
a) the neck would still sound exactly the same
b) the awesomeness that the neck had would be completely gone
c) probably the neck wouldn't be changed much, but we can't rule out the possibility that it might change a little bit, maybe imperceptibly, maybe for the better, maybe for the worse.
d) none of the above.
Instead of cutting the piece of wood into two pieces, let's cut it into 17 pieces. No, wait, 1700 pieces!
Never mind. Forget that question and consider this one instead: Suppose I presented you with two neck. They're essentially identical except that one is made from one piece of wood while the other is multiple pieces. The question is this: which neck would you guess is
most likely to be awesome?
The truth is, none of us can answer any of those questions with authority because nobody on earth has the necessary experience. All we have is our intuition along with some anecdotes that support our intuition (we never paid attention to the anecdotes that are counter to our intuition.) So don't bother emailing me your answers to my questions. They're just your worthless intuition and I already have my own.
EDIT: one of the most remarkable guitars that I own is a Tele with a one piece neck. Rings like a bell and sustains like a piano.