I think for less than $500 I can find a Mexican Strat that will be a lot more versital. Or a Dean, or an Epiphone, or hell, you can get a Parker Fly for less than a Tom Delonge Strat.

If you only use your bridge pickup, never want to do anything with a whammy bar, and never have the tone control on anything but 10, it would be an OK guitar. Just keep in mind that if that's how you play now, you may change your mind later down the road and want to be able to get more diverse sounds out of your instrument.