I think the type of pick and picking technique make a HUUUUGE difference. Way-way-way-way-way more than 1%. More like 50% at least. String gauge will also make a big difference.
I guess I'm all alone in my group on this topic -- tone is not "in the fingers" (if by that you mean the fretting hand), it's in the pick, or picking fingers if you're a fingerstyle player.
The touch with the pick and where you it the string (near neck, near bridge, somewhere in between), and what angle you hit the string with said pick, how you hold the pick, and the thickness/shape/flexibility of the pick and the material the pick is made of is crucial. It's why if you gave Jimmy Page a Strat, he would still sound like Jimmy Page, the only difference being he would sound like Jimmy Page playing a Strat. Give EVH an L5 and he'll still sound like EVH, but like EVH on an archtop. (By the way, I've heard EVH is actually pretty decent jazz player.)
Bigger strings will give you a bigger tone as will thicker no-flex picks. Folks trying to nail the SRV tone are constantly frustrated by the fact that he used stock +/-6k Fender pu's, which will sound huge with 11's or 12's, which is what SRV used. But most players are too wimpy to actually try to get used to 11's or 12's on a Strat so they pull their hair out wondering why they can't get his big-a$$ tone with 9's and a flimsy onion-skin pick.
And all this is, of course, leaving aside note choices and phrasing, string bends, blah-blah., which are obviously also crucial for a signature sound, but your signature tone (or timbre or whatever you wanna call it) is determined by how, where, and with what you hit those strings.
I've said it many times but YOUR PICK is by far the most under-rated piece of gear you will ever own. The lack of understanding of what should be an obvious point is a big part of what makes so many potentially good players mediocre. They spend thousands on gear and totally ignore their pick and their picking technique. It's all downstrokes bashing the string as hard as they can, always at the same spot on the string, always at the same angle, whether the passage of the song is supposed to be massive power chords or something subtle and sweet. And they wonder why they can't get a variety of tones and textures.
They also have the pick hanging so far out of their thumb and finger that it's wonder it doesn't fly across the room on every other stroke. They never learn to tuck the pick in deeper into their fingers with maybe at most 20% of it showing or how to hold it right (most hold it like they're holding up a dead rat by the tail). So they have no leverage and have to wear their picking hand out to the point of carpal tunnel syndrome trying to get enough pressure to drive the amp the way the want and so they despair of bothering with learning alternate picking, cross picking, string skipping, etc., all techniques that would allow them to really fly.
Don't get me wrong, gear very much does matter, but no amount of gear would make Al DiMeola sound like Marty Friedman, or vice versa.
I suppose I'm literally getting "picky" but seriously folks, please pay attention to your PICKS and how you use them. If you think I'm a little over the top, think about how rare it is to see a thread about picks here or in almost any guitar-oriented forum. The color of a pickguard gets way more attention than picks in here. There is no gear in the world that will fix a bad choice of pick -- or worse -- a lousy picking technique.
