Structural integrity of various types of maple

Strat54

Tom Anderson stopped using birdseye and flamed maple in the early 90's for stability issues. John Mayer's Black One had a flame maple neck that warped after a few years. The Fender Custom Shop replaced an awful lot of figured necks in the mid to late 90's too. 

Rabs

When I started working with wood it what really surprised me was finding out how soft South American (Genuine) Mahogany is..  Its what Gibson say they use even though I wonder sometimes. But on the Janka hardness scale its about 750/800 which I would say is right on the border of being hard enough for a neck. African Mahogany for instance is more like 1300 where as hard maple is 1500 and English oak is about 1800..  Rosewood 2400... And on the other end for reference Pine is about 350 (there is such a thing as hard Pine too)...

As far as what that does to tone..  Well I think I am just going to not say anything   

But also yes.. All of the figured maple tops I have bought have been quite soft...