Haha, it's funny you should mention that. I ordered a cheapo powered pedal board from Ebay this week. Let me link it.
LINK
I know it can't be very good, but I'm willing to put up with it. It really can't be that bad. It looks like just a laptop carry bag with a velcro board inside. It comes with a 6-port 9V AC power adapter.
I know it can't be very good, the cheapest powered pedalboard on musiciansfriend is around $100. But it really can't be that bad either. I'm just tired of carrying all my pedals in the back of my amp and spending 20 minutes assembing/disassembling. And with 2 new very nice additions coming soon, I'm going to need something to at LEAST carry them in.
Plus, I think the strat was updated in 2k or 2k1. It got an entirely new bridge and saddle assembly, Alnico5 magnets in the pickups (far hotter and..."bluesier" I've read), and 22 total frets as opposed to the same old 21 they made from 1954 and on (I can play the entire solo to Money on my strat!). Angle over the nut and headstock was changed and one string tree was removed. But in 2004 there was one more major upgrade: the S1 Switching system--a pretty big increase in the American strat's tonal abilities and versatility. I'm thinking about upgrading my guitar to S1 just for the simple ability to have both my bridge and neck pickups work simultaneously. But I can just get my toggle re-wired to do that for cheaper.
Have you ever upgraded the volume knob in your guitar? If not, you're almost certainly running a 500k volume potentiometer. Strats used to come with 1meg pots, and thus were hotter and a tad bit louder by their natural wiring. If your guitar came with Alnico pickups, they're just about as hot as single coils can get. It's just your volume knob not cranking them all the way up.
I know my guitar has a 500k and I'm going to upgrade as soon as I can. The new knob costs about $1.50 and can easily be soldered in yourself if you know how. Otherwise a guitar tech would probably do it for $5.