Is it just me, or are strats fucking gay and overrated guitar ever? The irony with this guitar is that it was originally designed as more "ergonomic" alternative to the telecaster, but they play like total shit. Middle pickups seems to always be in the way of picking/strumming, and the slanted pickup selector switch eventually just gets unintentionally hit. On top of this, they just sound relatively weak or anemic, with pickup positions 2 and 4 sounding extremely corny with the signature "quack" sound. Despite the more basic design, telecasters just play better and have a more direct, punchy tone. Nobody needs 5 different pickup positions. The telecaster and ES-335 are universally recognized as the most versatile guitars of all time and both of them only have 3 pickup positions. You have a massive range of tone to choose from with the more minimal design. The only setup in which a strat sounds relatively tolerable to me is if you're cranking it through a british voiced amp on the middle or neck pickup. Because they naturally have a weak/anemic sound, it seems obvious you need to balance it with a beefier sounding amp.