For my next one I'm going to (just about) repeat the wiring on my #1, because it's the best I've ever found in a long time of trying.
First you have to start with a Bill Lawrence L500XL or L in the bridge, because each side of it sounds about like a good overwound Strat or normal-wound P90, but Lawrence does something funny with the inductance so it doesn't lose top end, like a normal overwound PU. Clear as a bell, all the way up to the limits of your preamp. This pickup has to go to a five-way (or four-) splitter switch, so you can get either coil, or both in series, parallel or out-of-phase (which is useless to me, and is the one thing I'm changing - just a regular 4-way Tele blade switch will do). This PU then goes to it's own tone and volume control, then out to a 3-way. The neck PU is a single "noise-free" Lawrence, he's got a second dummy coil under the first at low power, not enough to kill it's single coil sound but enough to buck some hum. This has it's own tone and volume, then to the 3-way, though I'm thinking of dumping the tone in favor of maybe a 3-way mini switch tapping different resistors.
What this lets you do is control the combinations of the coils in any fashion, though in real use it can do most everything I want with just the series/parallel/back coil settings of the five-way and changing the volume controls. You could even build a monster with TWO L500s and a volume control for each coil - recombined to 2 tone controls, then to the three-way and out - but the research would eliminate most of the options anyway. All the above does is get you the same choices of coils as on a Strat with the middle pickup wired to cut in with the outer two, but the Strat wiring gives up some of the tone control over the bridge and center pickups, unless you add another knob.
You get your screaming humbucking lead sound, your single coil "Little Wing" sound, and your 4th-position Strat sound, with the neck PU and the back coil of the L500 combined. Plus a lot of other things. The L500 has a lot of juice so it doesn't just die with the volume on "5" like most pickups, but it stays bright too - I don't think this wiring would work with another pickup, except maybe a Lace or Alumitone or something too sterile.
