I was thinking of this while listening to some of the links. I can mimic his tone on even a strat by cranking the distortion and overdrive and throwing in a little chorus. Of course I'm not rhoads but you get the idea. It later became a little more compressed and polished and IMO became the guitar sound of glam rock/metal. Classic 80s really.
But if you really wanna talk about terrible tone from a great player, you have to look at Jeff Beck. If he were not so amazing you'd think he sucked!