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The JC120 has about the worst distortion known to modern man. We used to joke about super gluing the knob on zero on the house amps we had.
I'll second the Hot Rod series amps. You can find them used pretty easily and they tend to be pretty robust. Easy to dial up a few different tones. Add some sort of distortion pedal to season to taste. Careful with the pedals though - that is a whole universe in and of itself. Easy to spend thousands on boutique pedals if you slide down the slippery slope.
Strat vs. Les Paul is kind of a religious thing. I was always a strat guy, and never felt comfortable on LPs due in part to the shorter scale. I had a P90 guitar recently for awhile and never quite bonded with it as I'm partial to single coils. The Mexican made strats can be *very* good if you find the right one. Mainly you get more consistency with the US-built ones, but it isn't necessarily night and day. I've seen MIM (made in mexico) strats that were better than MIA (made in america) ones. And vice versa. Again, easy to find used. Just see if it plays ok and isn't beat up and have at it.
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