Just to add my 5 cents... I've been playing a lot of different electric guitars for around 10 years, and although I used to hate them, the best all round guitar is probably the good old Fender Stratocaster. I have a telecaster myself, which is a bit more twangy in the tone, but also very good allround. The strat is great for everything though... right from clean rockabilly, to clean / drive jazz, to rhythm metal or screaming heavy metal solos.
As for strings, I recommend going with one type of strings, or at least one particular gauge of strings. Rule of thumb is, the thinner the strings, the easier they are to play. Slightly less sustain than thicker strings though, but nothing to be worried about. The reason it's good to stay with one particular gauge per guitar is that a non-fixed bridge will be heavily affected... a floating bridge like the Floyd Rose tremolo system will take an hour to adjust to a new string gauge, I'm not kidding.
As for amps, I actually have a Roland micro Cube anniversary, and my dad has a Cube 20 or something like that. Both are fantastic, right from clean blackface style sound to super high gain. They're a bit simplistic, but they really do sound great. If you want some sound examples, just PM me.