Most rock gods started off studying their own gods. Steve Vai, for example, studied Zappa, Page and others. He subsequently studied under Satrianni, and went on to develop his own great style based on deep theoretical knowledge.
I was going to say that the best thing you can do for your improvisation is to learn lots of other people's solos. It's a language. Get it under your fingers. _And_ learn theory and boaden yourself into other genres by all means.
It's by no means universally accepted that you should avoid studying the mainstream if you want to be original. Walk before you run, maybe?
I think a wonderful solo to learn is Comfortably Numb (second solo).
This is great because there are numerous different live versions out there, so you can learn phrases from each, mix and match, and find yourself adding your own and expanding your ideas. It's also just such a powerful chord progression you can play over it for ages, messing around. Get a backing track of it and wail...
GaJ