My first question would be 'Are you a finger picker or a plectrum man?' also, 'What style of blues do you want to play?'
For a good general purpose dogsbody electric I always favoured a Telecaster. Strats seemed to sustain too much for fingerpicking.You can always ADD sustain with effects.
Copies of said Telecaster are pretty cheap nowadays and aren't the unplayable planks they were 30years ago. My own favourite was ESP Tele with stacked humbuckers and coil taps that at the time, cost me more than a Fender would. Enjoy!