The Vinatge vibe teles are absolutely superb for the money. Getting an appropriate rock sound out of them is a peice of cake. They can be a little noisy, simply screen the body cavity and underside of the scratch plate with copper foil, you may well get a 60hz mains hum, but that’ll not be noticeable when you’re actually playing.
A Yamaha Pacifica of any model number is massively overrated for the money, the neck on them is really nice but all the hardware and electrics are really cheap and nasty,and the pegboard is about the ugliest money can buy.
Vintage guitars are again, really great for the money.
Epiphone are massively overrated,buy a Vintage instead.
Have a look at Jay Turser (which are generally a bit less than your budget, I’ve got one of their semis and it’s brilliant for the money) As others have said Gordon Smith and PRS
At the end of the day, try one you like the look of, don’t bother listening through an amp. Buy the one that feels best playing the sort of stuff you think you’ll be playing.
Then try some amps to fit the guitar. The vox vt 40 is a nice little amp, but again once you’ve got the guitar, try it through a range of different amps then buy the one you like the sound of the most with the minimum of knob twiddling.
As a session player, there’s few things as annoying as sitting in a studio waiting for a guitarist to finishing spending an hour dicking around with amp and pedal settings to get “the sound just right” So buy an amp that you can just plug in and go, and play the guitar, don’t spend your life fiddling around with pedals and knobs.