Best affordable Single-Coil Electric Guitar, Fender?

In your case I would go with a fender, its a little lighter to carry it and it has plenty of good tone, easy to tune, and I love playing on my friends fender when I would go to his house. Strats are good too, depends on what kind of rock quality your looking for. Fender will be in your price range, a strat might go over that budget. Keep the Les Paul that u have they are terriffic guitars but expensive to get, talking like $1,000 to 3,000 for one of those. Also check the 2008 guitar guide to make sure that fenders are in your price range so that way u don't go to the store and find that they are most expansive then what you want to buy. Rock on my brother, coming from a guy whos been playing for six years. Rock and roll.