After many years, I am now considering replacing the bridge pickup on my American Standard Strat with an SC-sized humbucker. I have had varying degrees of success with the bridge single coil and would like to try something different while adding even more versatility. What are some of your favorites? I understand that they don't sound exactly like a full-sized humbucker (which is fine - I'll get another guitar for those full-sized HB tones); but how do sound when split or wired in parallel?

Why not trying the Tone Zone or the Fast Track 1? Sonny Landreth uses the Fast Track 1 in the bridge position on many of his guitars.

There are other fine stack humbuckers from DiMarzio and Seymour Duncan: Classic Stack, Chopper, Coolrails, Hotrails, Fast Track 2, HS-1, 2 3 and 4 to name a few. But there are also several brands who make their own stacked humbuckers, including Fender among others.

A stacked humbucker can be splitted and tapped. I have a partscaster with two Duncan Classic Stacks in the middle and the neck and a Duncan Trembucker in the bridge. The Classic Stacks had a three-conductor cable allowing splitting for true single coil mode.

Hmm. But does a stacked humbucker sound anything at all like a humbucker? They are humbucking in the sense that they utilize two coils, but since only one coil has magnets, the other is essentially a dummy coil that is reverse wound in relation to the first. They try more or less to sound like a single coil. By contrast, a "single-coil-sized" humbucker (such as the rail models you are referring to) is a side-by-side humbucker that has a reduced physical footprint that fits in the space of a typical single-coil pickup. These are intended to sound like their bigger brothers, but without having to modify your guitar's body and/or pickguard.

In fact, I see that Seymour Duncan has an SC-sized version of their Pearly Gates humbucker.

Dave Murray has several Strats with three SD Hot Rails in an HHH configuration.

Hey there, I've used the SEYMOUR DUNCAN HOT RAILS in the bridge position for a long time, and I'll recommend that to anyone. They sound fantastic!

Seymour Duncan lil screamin demon. Have one and love it. Look into it.

Duncan Jeff Beck Junior.

Fender should at least consider a SC-sized version of their DH-1 (hint hint).

Fender Enforcer and Atomic Jrs? Why not? Sounds very interesting...