I have ALWAYS, from day one, strung my Ibanez with a Floyd Rose locking bridge backwards, i.e. ball end at the tuning peg. For a number of reasons:
1) Easier to string up, as you don't have to cut the ball end off and having the ball act as a stopper at the tuning post keeps the string from coming undone from the post.
2) When I break a string, 100% of the time, it has been at the bridge. This way, if it breaks at a gig, on the set break I can loosen the bridge clamp in question, remove the tiny leftover piece of string, unwind enough string from the tuning peg to reseat the string in the bridge saddle (the ball again keeps it from ever coming free of the tuning peg), lock the clamp, retune, and go. A nice time saver over having to search out a new string, string snips, remove the old one, re-install a new one, etc.
3) No sharp ends to stab myself on.
4) That was the way I was shown the very first time.
We took Jr's Ibanez to an authorized repair place for service (the closest one, which is an hour away), as it won't stay in tune, and apparently this G10 series has seen some "won't return to zero" tuning stability issues, and Guitar Center won't do warranty work for Ibanez. The repair guy emails me back to say this is the first time he's ever seen a guitar strung in this manner and he wondered if that might have something to do with the tuning issues.
I am almost at a loss for words. This is an extremely common way to string a FR-equipped guitar. VERY common. I cannot for the life of me imagine any sort of authorized repairman not being familiar with this.
Anyone that owns a FR equipped guitar - how do you string yours?