Good points Simon.

Wazza, just curious, do you have 6 or 3 saddle bridges on those teles?

The type of bridge doesn't explain what you experienced regarding the string trees but, I found a clever intonation technique for standard 3 saddle tele bridges that I like to share. It's an article from Jerry Donahue and it works a treat for common tele D/G intonation issues.

Sorry for the slight left turn topic-wise, but here ya go: Jerry Donahue Tele Intonation