Should I swap pickups?

You have recently acquired some wealth & wish to upgrade pickups for some aural appeal- here's some reflections before you take the plunge:

1. You are emulating your idol & wish to replicate his guitar hardware so just instal what he has in his guitar, in yours- this is a reckless move. Your idol is probably some pro running his signals through countless processors so by the time these reach the amp, the tone is super polished; it's not about the pickups per se, it's the entire set-up for consideration.
2. Amplifier before pickups- this is a lesson learnt throughout the years of playing. I had a handful of guitars in my early playing years but still plugging into a practice-grade amp (typically one with a small driver, enough to push the airwaves, nothing spectacular or respectably decent for that matter). I equipped one of my Ibanez RG with DiMarzio pickups but the end result still sounded like plugging into a practice-grade amp... It's not until I acquired my Marshall DSL401 (all tube, 40W, 1x12 combo) did I hear a marked pickup performance output.
3. Higher output = better for distortion? This is perhaps one of the active (forgive the pun) misconceptions in guitardom, today. No- higher output pickups are not exclusively better performers when it comes to signal overdrive/ distortion. Again, citing a personal account- I swapped my Ibanez RG560's default bridge humbucker for a DiMarzio Tone Zone withe clear regrets; I didn't sound a million times better thereafter. So one fateful day, I entered the guitar store in sado-masochistic mood & bought a DiMarzio PAF humbucker, (one of the lowest ouput humbucker out there) & installing it in the very same Ibanez RG. It worked wonders when it comes to distortion (excess distortion in my case). Do note that the pickups in active units like an EMG for instance are indeed low output pickups which become high output due to the inclusion of an on board pre-amp; so now you know...