I appreciate Sukie and John's opinions about how handy pickups can be. I haven't had to set mics up at shows, so it's easy for me to say "mics sound better" without knowing what that entails.
I am very wary of anything that even MIGHT diminish sound quality though, so I won't add one to my Uke, but my guitar came with one installed by the previous owner, and I'm not about to remove it to make the guitar sound better. (It does take batteries though, what am I supposed to do, loosen all the strings and reach in there?)
John - I believe it was your video on youtube that I listened to that helped me hear the difference between mics and pickups. The right and left audio channels made it easy to switch back and forth to compare.
I was shopping for a uke, and had narrowed in on the mainland mango, so I listened to your vids where you played it, one of which was the tutorial of how you installed the soundboard pickup.
It's interesting you say the soundboard pickup interferes less with the sound, good to know.
[p.s. to John: Your opinion on the mainland mango was really helpful, since you obviously had heard a lot of ukes, it helped me feel confident in it, and I ended up getting one and love it, so thank you! And your great playing helped a lot too, so I could really hear the Uke]