Since you mentioned Alembic:
They built, through their connection to the Grateful Dead, one of the first recognized and used pre-amps in a guitar. The Strat-O-Blaster. It is simply a unity gain buffer. It can be used as a booster although it tends to change the tone dramatically as the gain increases.
When I built my first guitar, I built a multiple gain staged onboard pre-amp. single/bucker/bucker with on/off swtiching and coil taps on the buckers. there is an onboard stereo effects loop with its own volume control, two tone controls (treble and bass) and a straight guitar volume. taking the fx loop out of the equation, you can have the sound of a lot of different guitars. Then blend in the color you want.
The pre is touch sensitive more akin to an acoustic than an electric - the sound doesn't change, it just gets louder.
Does it work? yes. Is it complete overkill? yes.