Ok, you can put any pickups you want into any guitar. That means you can put humbuckers with some serious output into a Tele, even modify it to have a vibrato bridge. I suggest you take a look at Todd Huth's Telecaster... I have never seen more mods done to one guitar. So what everything comes down to is "how does the neck play," and "do I like the way this guitar sounds?" If you have any vision at all you can play any style of music on any guitar. Period.

The only resons NOT to pick a "classic" Fender is that it doesn't have enough frets, you want a shorter scale, or a set neck/ neck through guitar.

Or you'de rather have something that looks different.