This was my experience as well. Very mid-y sounding pickups with no real sparkle or depth. I put Fender Fat 50’s into the guitar and all of a sudden it sounded like a strat for the first time. This was a MIM from 2000 though, so maybe they’ve gotten better since then.I have an HSS. I saw a significant improvement, for my preferences, after replacing the pickups. That improvement was getting tones more associated with classic Strat sounds (deep, clear neck pickup tones and chimey, sparkly in-between positions. The stock pickups had a more middy response that some players may (or in my case, may not) prefer.
Correct, those were ceramic pickups, very different from the alnicos in the player series.This was my experience as well. Very mid-y sounding pickups with no real sparkle or depth. I put Fender Fat 50’s into the guitar and all of a sudden it sounded like a strat for the first time. This was a MIM from 2000 though, so maybe they’ve gotten better since then.