Re: Strat Copies better then the originals
Parts builds can be great guitars and can also be great values however I don't know that you can get in and out for a grand w/o leaving something off or putting off set up work.
As far as "better" than a Strat, it really depends on what, to you makes a guitar "better".
When I play a lot of guitars that are "improved" versions of Strats and Tele's or even Les Pauls, SG's, etc I often find that while they gained some stuff...maybe it plays "better", feels "better, sounds "better", etc they lost something and more often than not they lost something too important to loose.
All this said it truly depends on what you want from a Strat but if I were Strat shopping right now I'd save a few hundo more and drop $1200-1400 on a used Eric Johnson Strat OR I'd get a Jimmie Vaughan and upgrade a few things, which to be honest is what IO did a few years ago!
However, if you want humbuckers, locking tremolo systems, etc my options are not great for you...