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Yup, I'm a modder; at least on my sub $1k guitars.  I have a Gretsch 5120 that I:
  Replaced the stock pickups with TV Jones boutique pickups
  Replaced the tuneomatic bridge with a Tru-Arc Stainless Steel bar bridge
  Replaced the stock tuners with Grover locking tuners
  Replaced the Delrin nut with a Micarta 'artificial bone' nut
  Added an engraved jackplate that says, "Exit Only"
  Put a pinup and gretsch decal on the pickguard

But as you say, if you go this route you can resign yourself to the fact that you will never be able to sell the instrument for a price that will cover the cost of labor and hardware.  It's a labor of love.

In the book I learned from (The Art of Contemporary Travis Picking by Mark Hanson), the thumb "owns" strings 4,5 &6... EXCEPT on chords with a 4th string root, like D and F, in which case, everything moves up one string.  On a D chord, the thumb will alternate on 3 &4 (or 5) and the index and middle will have strings 2 and 1 respectively.

A, D and E are all part of the A major scale.  The A-minor pentatonic scale, which is what your basic blues scale is based on, also contains the A, D and E notes.  It works out that just about any note in the pentatonic scale will "work" with those three chords in musical context.  It's nice to hit the chord tones on the beat when the chord changes, as this provides "resolution", but it also gets boring and predictable (from a listening standpoint) very quickly.   If you start on the A (fourth string 7th fret) and just noodle about a bit in the pentatonic, maybe sliding up from the D to the E (hitting the blue note on the slide) in time for the chord change to E, you'll be fine.

Disclaimer--  I'm by no means a soloist, I'm just learning to improvise as well.

Books:  Bruce Buckingham's "Guitar Basics" and Jamie Andreas' "The Principles of Correct Practice for Guitar"

Practice EVERY day.  20 minutes at first, and work up from there.

Also, get a metronome and a cheap recorder of some type, and record your practice once a week.  In three months, go back an listen to how far you've come.

I also have a Breedlove Atlas (Studio) DM-25, and I actually like it better than a Taylor I have that cost $300 more.  I've had no opportunity to check on their customer service, though.

What Buzzwagon said.  A Telecaster is not a Jazzmaster is not a Les Paul is not a Gretsch.  Woods, pickups, solid, semi-hollow, hollow, pickup placement, bridge style; all will affect the tone.  It helps to know what kind of music you want to play-- there are certain guitars that are pretty much synonymous with certain styles of music.  Not to say you can't play surf with a Les Paul, but it's much easier to get the 'surf tone' with a Jazzmaster, or a B.B. King blues tone with a semi-hollow.

Welcome baysum!

Tip #1, practice every day.

Tip #2, go slowly; I mean really, stupidly slowly, and watch your hands to make sure you're placing your fingers properly.

Tip #3, if you find your fingers muffling strings (and you will), wiggle them to get the strings sounding--don't try to just muscle through it by pressing harder.

Tip #4, USE A METRONOME.  If you are human, your timing sucks.  Use a metronome religiously to help keep time, and tap your foot too.

Tip #5, record yourself.  Get a cheap recorder of some sort, and record a practice session every week.  Go back in a few months and listen to them, you'll be amazed at how far you've come.

Good luck, stick with it, and don't get discouraged.

Baldguitardude is describing a "long A" moved up two frets.  I just play it as a barre chord with index and middle fingers, like all us mutants.

Something no one has yet mentioned, is you shouldn't try to "muscle" your way into the chord.  It's not so much how hard you're pressing down on the string so much as WHERE you're pressing it.  When you're sounding those individual strings, if one is muted just wiggle the muting finger around a bit instead of squeezing harder.

I think you'll find that your stamina will increase massively if you relax the fretting hand during the chord changes.  Also, relaxing the fretting hand and then grabbing the same shape in a different place (slowly at first, and then gradually speeding up) will help with both your fretting accuracy and your changing speed.  So, yes you should relax the fingers during the changes rather than attempting to muscle through it.

With a metronome, you practice keeping time; you also improve your speed and accuracy on scales and licks.  Start out alternate picking with the metronome on a REALLY slow speed (say 40 clicks per minute), and do whatever you're working on at one pick for every two clicks on the metronome.  When you can do it 3 times in a row without mistakes, change to one pick per click, then move up to 60 clicks per minute, then 80, then 100.  Go back to to 60, and do two picks per click (eighth notes), and work your way back up to 100 clicks per minute.  go back to 60, and do four picks per click (sixteenth notes). 

The above exercise really helps with scales and such.  When you're working on particular licks, you will need to look at the music and figure out what the timing is for each note, and work the piece one bar at a time starting at the END, and working toward the beginning.  If the piece is in eighths, count it as 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &, set your metronome really slow to start (so slowly that you don't make ANY mistakes), and work on slowly getting up to tempo.  If you teach yourself to do with no mistakes from the beginning, you'll find that once you get up to tempo, you won't make mistakes there either; your fingers will just DO it.

So, start SLOW, don't speed up until you can do it flawlessly, and work backwards from the end of the piece.

Good luck.

Do a Google search on "guitar left hand stretching", and you'll get about a brazillion hits for exercises to improve your reach.  Take it easy on the stretching, though; it's easy to injure yourself.  Other than that, thumb position is by far the most important factor in reach.