Hi, aschleman. Thanks for the very informative post. Learned a lot there. A few questions:
1.Is the dreadnought a common or high-end/professional kind of guitar?
2.You mentioned the strings-- since I basically can't do anything with the guitar itself-- do you mean there are certain kinds of replacement steel strings for a Squier that I can choose from or is it an option only for certain guitars? I hope it's a yes because I'm not so crazy with the overly metallic sound of the 1-3rd strings

Also, thanks for the advice, Matt-- appreciate it.