My friend who is also an SE dealer is having a ton of trouble with SE. This may have all been rectified since but he was having trouble getting one of their forks warrantied after it bent like crazy, and somehow it bent forwards. Seriously, the forks were messed up. And yes the landing gear forks have a good rep, but my friends assumption, and I don't know if this is true, is that the forks on the socal may have landing gear written on them but they aren't the same quality as the landing gear forks sold after-market.
Either way, having seen the bike in question I would hesitate to buy one, and after my friend had to replace the fork, on his shops dime, with a redline fork I don't have much faith in SE. I mean, seriously, you should have seen this bike, the forks were bent in a way that I can't imagine how it happened. If I built a bike and that happened I would refund the customer and beg him not to tell anyone about it. That's how ridiculous the bend was.