Re: What pickup config should I put in my tele?
I personally like the rail SC sized humbuckers a ton.
For a tele, i don't like to mess with the bridge too much, because it is pretty epic as is(i will probably build an Esquire at some point because of this) but i DO hate continual 60 cycle hum with a passion, hence the railbuckers. I like something PAF-ish hot, like 6-7k, no more than 8k in the bridge(though at some point i think i will experiment with something like 14k with a coil split for ye olde shits and giggles). My current rail tele neck pickup is very very much like a strat neck pickup to my ears, just, minus the hum. I dig that for the kind of playing i have been doing these last couple years or so. I have weird tastes in pickups though. I tend to like something that i could play thrash with if i wanted, but like, i never play thrash. I like pickups that are bight and sharp, but that can get a relatively tight chug going on.
But the rail SC-sized HBs do tend to be a bit more squeal-prone than a normal fullsized HB, which is something worth noting, anyhow. They are still less squealy than a bright-ass vintage wind SC in my experience.
I feel like you might dig a fullsize HB or a P90 in the neck. I have an old-ass Gibson pickup that i had in the neck of mine for a while that was really pretty cool. It brings a fullness and depth to the guitar that is a little bit different than what a tele usually provides.
It is a good idea to pay attention to output level though. Drastic mismatches between the neck and bridge can be a real pain in a tele, with no quickeasy way to adjust the volume between them. When i had the old Gibson in there, it was just about bottomed out in the body, to try to match the volume of my lowish output railbucker bridge(which is IIRC about 6-7k). It was still a bit louder, but in an interesting way.
It would be inexpensive enough to give a shot to trying a GFS PAF-ish thing in the neck and either their low or middle output barden/hotrail/coolrail/whatever copies in the bridge. Your guitar may already be routed for a fullsized neck even. My MIM was.
I would probably stick to the HB format in the neck rather than routing it out for a p90, at least until you are fully clear about what sort of setup you are going to stick with. There are also plenty of HB-sized p90s out there, even from fancypantsy places like Fralin and whatnot.