About the image, normally K50 would have done that (he's the SSS image editor) but he hasn't been here for some time, so me and Cheeseguy worked on it together to fill in this month. Cheeseguy did most of the cool stuff, though.
About the guitars, I thought the stratocaster was a good fit because just about every guitarist knows about it. I personally play one and I love it. I generally prefer fender guitars because they have the single coil pickups. I like the sharp cutting sound of them better, but then again, in music, it isn't as wide of a sound, even through a bunch of amps. With me, that doesn't really matter as much. I tend to make it sound like there are two guitars with neat tricks anyway, so that helps to fill up my music a little more. I'm not really a very good guitarist, though.
Anyway, congratulations! It's a well deserved MOTM.