I remember seeing a video interview somewhere where he talked about the string-gauge... Now; my memory ain't good, so bear with me on this one...
The story went something like this. The Reverend were playing with BB King(or was it Chuck Berry?) and he was playing these heavy gauge strings. BB King(or Chuck Berry) commented on it, saying something like "man, why do you work that guitar so hard?", and that's when the Reverend started using lighter gauges. I'll see if I can dig out the video in question. Only thing I remember was it being in something that looked like his house, and I saw it on YouTube... I'll need another whiskey for this.
Edit: SO! It was BB King. And he said "Why are you working so hard? You need to lighten up". Here's the video. Wasn't that hard to find after all.