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I'm not sure about the rules of submitting something like this to Hacker News, but I found it to be a fascinating quirk at the intersection of culture and technology. I didn't even know about it (the radio edit) when I started researching this song for my website. The gist is below.

The Knack's 1979 breakout hit My Sharona is remembered for spending six weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, but that radio edit is woefully incomplete. Lead guitarist Berton Averre’s full-length My Sharona solo is absolutely transcendent. Which makes it all the more ridiculous that it was cut for time on the radio release.

Oddly enough... I looked for the full length version, played it through and... yep, that's how I remember it. From what I recorded off the radio as a 12 year old in Germany. I guess they ran the full length version there.
I'm too young to know the radio version but I've definitely enjoyed the solo for many years listening to the mp3 version.
The Beatles never sat on the stereo mixes for any of their songs because the radio of the time was AM / mono. All the stereo mixes were done by their producer / sound engineers / possibly others without their input. Not that they were cut out or anything; they just didn't care.
The worst, for me, was watching a Gary Clark Jr live recording (I think it was When My Train Pulls In) on YouTube. He had a long solo, and, right in the middle of it, a damn Cialis ad pops in.
What an awesome guitar solo. I think my favorite of any.

In fact the entire album is really awesome.

Wow, I'd never heard that before. That was really wonderful.

All those times I'd listened to it on the radio... I knew it was missing something.

That was some serious musicianship right there!
Favourite guitar solos? I like "Sweet Child of Mine" and "Brothers in Arms".
I'm partial to the solo in comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd.