I had a Fury from 87 until the mid 90s. It was my primary bass off and on for a few years. Of course, being the late 80s, I replaced the stock split coil with an EMG. Played well, sounded decent.
I played in a band for several years in which I played drop D all the time. It was an acoustic/electric 5 piece and the D tuning helped to sure up some of the bottom left empty by the acoustic guitars. One trick, and I think someone mentioned it already, is to map your low D to your high D...