In between Mule and Rebel Yell, versatile, dynamic, articulate (not articulated, unless you want it to also work as a lorry)... to my mind, you're describing the Black Dog.
Tight but full low end, mids with the same kind of smoothness as the Mule but stronger/more pronounced and less chewy, but keeping the PAF openness/character; less compressed than the Rebel Yell and wider mids, not as focused in the upper mids. The Black Dog is listed as vintage hot but in many ways it's more "low-output modern"; it takes gain like a champ and where some hot PAF designs feel like they're bursting at the seams, the BDs feel like they've got plenty of headroom, which is where you get the dynamic quality. Aggressive but open, focused but clear. The neck feels more PAFy, but again, has that more modern edge where the attack is a bit quicker than PAF designs and the pick attack clearer.
That said, your 80s rock heroes would lead me more towards the Holydiver/Cold Sweat/Rebel Yell.
For comparison's sake, the Holydiver bridge is more compressed, thicker in the mids, smoother in the top end, and has a singing quality (as opposed to the Rebel Yell scream); the neck also sings and is a very bright, articulate neck pickup. The Cold Sweat bridge is surgically tight, thick tight bass, bright open high end and scooped feeling mids (they're there, but the bass and treble are more dominant). It can feel stiff at times though, particularly in the wrong guitar. The neck is phenomenal - juicy, full, clear, percussive, just the perfect lead pickup for shreddy stuff.
All that said, pretty much any pickup will do the ones of your heroes through the right amp/pedals - I've been revisiting the first two Gary albums recently and they are the Greeny LP and his 61 Strat just through a Guv'nor/DS1 and Marshalls cranked to buggery. So with all that said about the other pickup designs, from your initial brief, I'm very confident in recommending the Black Dogs.
