I've been playing guitar on and off for a few years, and my first guitar was an epiphone Les Paul junior, just one pickup a volume and a tone control, it was great to learn on and still sounds better than a lot of my friends guitars (and it was cheap)

on the subject of Brian May a lot of his distinctive sound comes from the way his guitar is wired, he has his pickups set so they can be turned on and off independantly and set in and out of phase with each other which greatly effects the dynamic of the sound, it's not something many guitars are able to do, also the pickups are wired in series not in parallel as on most guitars, but it is very easy to re-wire a Strat' to get the same options and a similar sound.