First, I'm a brand new member here and like everything so far.

I'm also new (again) to guitar. I took some guitar lessons as a kid and then life put it on the back burner. Now at 48, I've picked it back up and I'm having an absolute blast!

I bought a Squier Affinity HSS Strat and I'm loving it but being in a technology profession, I can't leave anything alone so I immediately started upgrading it. I've already put on locking tuners and changed to 500k pots, new pick guard, graphite nut and about to upgrade to a 2 point trem. All of these upgrades have been fun and fairly inexpensive, but upgrading the pups will put me close to the "I should just buy a standard strat" category.

So, my question, the guitar comes with the standard Fender Strat pickups in neck and mid and the humbucker is just described as "standard humbucker". Given that I'm new and don't have what I would consider a honed musical ear, should I invest in new pickups? I've been looking at the Seymour Duncan stuff but I also want to make sure I retain that 'Strat Sound'.

Thought? Recommendations for 'strat sounding' pups?