Has anyone of you ever removed the pickguard entirely? If so, what did you do with the holes from the screws?
I like it when I can see the wood grains of the instrument. I therefore think it’s a shame when a three-tone-sunburst has 50% of the body covered in white plastic.
Have a look at the difference between these two basses:
Sure have:
I left the screw holes as they are - I like the rough look. What’s potentially a bit more irritating is the cavity for the neck pickup, which is routed larger and normally covered by the pick guard. But… I kinda like the “rough”, renegade look 
If you are not a pick player or a heavy slapper/popper, you don’t really need a pick guard.
Yes I did on a few basses, I just either left the hole or fill it with either gold or black screws just to make it pop a bit. Same as no difference when I put the clear pickguard too.
It’s quite a common practice to see holes on a Fender basses mostly from the pickup covers and sometime the thumb rest removal.
I’ve owned a lot of instruments without a pickguard and never had an issue with scratches, despite being a pick player primarily.
This tbh, hand generally barely moves? 
Got to be goin pretty hard at it to scratch the body/pick guard? Much too hard surely?
True but one is an active bass with rear access to the control cavity while the PBasses routing is exposed once the pickguard is removed. So the option of no pickguard is limited to those instruments that don’t have significant top routing or a bass custom ordered with no pickguard.
Me, I’m so used to pickguards on most everything that I don’t even think about it other than to buy a few different pickguards for certain instruments and change them every once in awhile like I change the ties I wear. Just something to give it a different look.
It’s actually not the pick but your fingernails on the guitars. The 2 points that many people use for anchoring the thumb and pinky. When I play guitar I can’t float my hand and plug I have to use my pinky as a monopod, lol. The nail mark/ scratch is from there on one of my strat I had the plastic on and it was ripped and made a line scratch underneath.
Oh I own an instrument right now that someone rocked really hard with a pick and scratched impressively 
. It’s a lot about picking style really.
