You can move beyound strumming. I was in your shoes only a couple of years ago myself. I vastly improved my playing by finding a song that was "over my head" and taught myself how to play it.

For example, "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC has this cool hammer on/pull off riff that I thought was hard. After a little practice, I can fly through it in my sleep. Another great song to help this technique for me was Rush's 'The Spirit of Radio.' Next I learned Extreme's 'Decadance Dance' which has about 10 lessons in itself.

I think you may find The Ventures instrumental music a blast to play with and could possibly expand your soloing technique without being intimidating. Their songs are pretty easy to play for the most part and will help develop your soloing. Think about giving 'Pipeline', 'Nutrocker', or 'Wipeout' a go. They are very clever and always impress.

For the record, in my "mostly 80s" cover band, we do a hard rock/metal version of 'Pipeline' as the intro to Iron Maiden's 'Run To The Hills'. It goes over really well with both young and old. The theme to 'Batman' and 'Spiderman' also come out cool too.

Good luck!