As far as pickups go think of them as a microphone for your srtings. the farther the strings are away from the "microphone" the lower your signal will be. And the closer they are the louder your sigmal will be.
Your post is a little ambigous.... are you talking about raising the string height (action) or the pickups?
Raising the strings can do wonders for your tone, but also makes the guitar a little less "lead-friendly". It's harder to play quickly, but the strings have more clearance over the fretboard and room to really vibrate. You can really dig in and manipulate the strings without fretting out.
Most shredders are looking for extremely low action, while many blues players have high action.
As far as pickups go think of them as a microphone for your srtings. the farther the strings are away from the "microphone" the lower your signal will be. And the closer they are the louder your sigmal will be.