Hi Bob,

It sounds like the ART100 has a more smooth sound when distorted and the strat a more "broken-up" sound when distorted?

If I'm understanding that correctly, humbuckers will deliver a more smooth distortion tone in general with a lot of gain. Strat's with single-coild pickups generally don't put out as much signal so the distortion is still not "quite there". But strats are excellent for a less distorted blues sound (like Jimmy Vaughan).

Similar to the sound in this lesson here with Anders on a strat:
http://www.guitartricks.com/lesson.php?input=16908&c_id=16&ch_id=99&s_id=1258