I think the intentional distortion you're referring to (and what is making commercial mixes so dense) is more the use of compression and hard limiting than anything else. Dynamic processing is distortion, when you have a gain reduction circuit (digital or analogue) fluctuating really quickly and slamming down on peaks, you get harmonics because the input signal starts to approach a square wave.
You can still use compression without killing dynamics. Try using it parallel instead of inserted; you'll get the increased harmonic content and the denser sound without losing transients and destroying dynamic range completely. Also, I would say that clever use of reverb and delay are massively more effective at "filling out" a mix than using new guitar strings. New strings will give you more high-frequency content, but that's not what makes a mix sound full, it's what helps it to sound crisp.
More filled-in waveforms in a mix is dynamic distortion, not strings.
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