How did you store your maple billets? were they stacked together?
As far as I know, in the acoustic instrument world the idea is to get the wood as dry and thus stable as possible so that further shrinkage is minimised. Swelling is less of an issue. Acoustic instruments swell and shrink with the weather.
As far a solidbodies go, people tend to seal the wood heavily and this counteracts movement due to climate changes in the long run. So I guess you need to keep the humidity relatively constant while building, that's all.
So far I have built my bass over a year in totally uncontrolled conditions, humidity ranging from 98RH down to 35RH and temperatures from freezing to 42C. It makes life bit more difficult, and sure the wood has moved a lot, but on the whole it appears to have stabilized and apart from a few small issues it looks like continued movement in the wood won't be a problem.
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