But basically, would a trained ear still say "oh that must be the Morse pickup"
No - in my opinion. (Is that good or bad for you? Not sure which way your question is slanted.) Pickup is such a small fraction of the tone equation. I think people get way too hung up on pickup taxonomy instead of just playing. (Myself included.) Just get a good pickup, roughly in the ballpark you want, and you'll find a way to make it sound good. Anyway, lots of pickups are ceramic and they're certainly not specifically designed for solid state distortion.
