It certainly has a much higher ceiling than your current bucket, and it's possible that you won't have a drop, but will start moving up right away. (Depending on which bucket you wind up in.)
Looking back at your post, it sounds like you're going to wind up in the squeaky-clean bucket, so I would expect your EX score to pretty well match the other two. I don't think that EX nails you so much for inqs, as it does for the actual new accounts that result from the inq. How many new accounts have you opened within the last 12 months?
And even then, if you didn't have a lot of open accounts before, you might not be penalized for newer accounts at all, as they are helpful to your overall profile. Again, it's very much a bucket thing.
* Credit is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master. * Who's the boss --you or your credit?
FICO's: EQ 781 - TU 793 - EX 779 (from PSECU) - Done credit hunting; having fun with credit gardening. - EQ 590 on 5/14/2007