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→Single Coils vs. Humbuckers
One of the largest issues involved in magnetic guitar pickups is that they are prone to picking up interference, such as from flourescent lights or radio signals. This produces hum and noise. Single coil pickups use one coil, whereas humbuckers use two coils wound in opposite directions. Humbuckers pick up the interference; but with opposite voltages in each coil, the interference from each coil cancels the other out. This is why they are called humbuckers - they have less noise and hum than single coils, at least before "noiseless" single-coils were created.
Humbuckers also have more output than single-coils, which can make them more easily push an amp into overdrive/distortion. In the modern world, this isn't much of a feature - most amps now feature powerful pre-amp drive. Or you can resort to a fairly cheap boost pedal to make the signal hotter. Humbuckers main benefit is their higher signal-to-noise ratio(but ultimately depends on the exact models being compared). Distortion tends to add noise, so it's helpful to start with a rather clean signal, or things can quickly become a noisy mess.
Yet, single-coil and humbucker pickups have different tone. This is mostly due to their impedance. Pickups - pickups have a resonant peak, a frequency where they are most responsive and have more output. For frequencies higher than the resonant peak, pickups get worse and worse at reproducing those frequencies. Single-coils have a higher resonant peak, and thus have a certain "shimmer" to their tone. They are described as glass-like. Humbuckers, in contrast, sound a bit nasal.
For all these reasons, humbuckers are generally preferable for distorted tones, while single coils are preferable for clean sounds; however, this also depends on the kind of tone you want. Many jazz players prefer a humbucker, even though they are using pristine clean tones.
===Parallel-wired Humbuckers===
The point here is just because it's a humbucker doesn't mean it has to sound nasal.
Many guitars that feature single-coil pickups have them wired so that the pickup selector can select two-at-once, with the selected pickups having opposite direction coil windings. This effectively makes them operate as one big parallel humbucker - , having single-coil tone with yet also having hum-canceling. This is how the Fender Stratocaster is wired for pickup selector positions 2 and 4, which happen to be very popular positions.
===Stacked Humbuckers===
Also, appearances can be decieving. Most humbuckers have two clearly visible coils or are cased but clearly wider than a single-coil. However, some pickups look nearly identical to single coils but are actually humbuckers. The two coils are stacked on top of each other, creating the appearance of a single coil. Many times the goal is to get hum-canceling, not the more nasal and higher output humbucker tone; so they are wired in parallel. Yet, this is not always the case, and you have to be careful when selecting your pickups and/or wiring them, depending on what you want.
===Single-Space Humbuckers===
Some humbuckers come in the same shape/size as a single-coil pickup - they simply have smaller coils, with many using rails instead of pole-pieces. They have the same characteristics as regular humbuckers, but because of their size, they can be placed under regions of the strings that normal humbuckers cannot. For example, Joe Satriani uses one for his 24 fret signature model. He feels the single space humbucker placed right up against the fretboard gets him the same tone as his neck humbucker on his 22 fret signatures.
They also make for a seamless transition from a single-coil to a humbucking pickup - no need to change or modify pickguards...<i>or your guitar body!</i>
==Position==