If it protects the guitar top and you do, as you say, hit that area occasionally, I think you should just leave it in place.
And Dru, you may not have seen any pickguards over on the bass side of the strings, but I've seen a few. In fact, the used Guild jumbo I bought a couple of years ago had two full-sized clear pickguards, one on each side of the soundhole.
I've also seen an array of home-made tortoiseshell plastic pickguards of various shapes and sizes on that side, some of which have looked truly awful, but some of which looked surprisingly cool.
So it really just depends on the player's needs. I didn't need a bass side pickguard on my Guild, and am not fond of clear pickguards to begin with, so I removed both of them (and two full sheets of the material that had been stuck on the back, presumably to prevent belt buckle rash,) and put a solitary firestripe pickguard in the normal position.
That works just fine for me, but people's needs vary. So my vote is that Alex just leave his cool little custom bass side pickguard in place. It'll probably come in handy soon if not sooner....
Wade Hampton Miller
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