I was always told the winds where important to get the string going down nicely over the nut so string trees aren't doing all the work.
I have some tuners on one axe that don't need trees at all as they are height adjustable for having the string go over the nut properly.
Hey RG,
The number of string windings ARE important on a guitar with non-locking tuners, and a standard nut, but it makes no difference with a locking nut. Once you clamp down the strings at the nut and lock them, you could (theoretically), cut off the strings behind the nut, and it won't affect your tone. Of course, no one would want to do that. I'm just illustrating my point.
The other tuners are the staggered tuners I mentioned, that you don't want to use string trees with, because that will cause tuning issues if you use the tremolo. I have a set of Sperzel locking tuners like that on my 1980 STRAT, and one of my 2004 Showmaster guitars. Even the Ezy-glide string trees caused tuning issues, so I removed them. No issues now.
Harley