Bear in mind that the expression pedal hasn’t got any audio signal running through it, so there’s no signal degradation in whatever you use - whether it costs £17 or £170, it’s just a potentiometer, some connecting wire, and a pedal with a hinge.
I’m not a fan. The SX I had years ago had the older headstock. I have a maple jazz neck on one of my bitsa basses at the moment, and I’ve toyed with making up some veneers to cover it up!
I’ve got a Vintage (brand, not age) SG that plays beautifully. I’ve retro fitted a Bigsby style trem, and put coil-tappable humbuckers with push/pull pots to go between humbuckers and single coils.
At its default setting it’s wired as a pair of single coils, and I find that I rarely bother with hunbuckers- it sounds great like that.
Upgrade your snare to one with a mesh head - arguably that’s the one you’ll be using most often, than think about your kick.
a better quality sound module will help too, but I think the feel of the snare is the most important thing.
One caveat to my vox amplug useage - I use the ‘clean’ version, intended for guitar. It doesn’t have the metronome or bass amp sims (but the fender bassman setting is pretty good), but I often like to practice without any amp sims, just to concentrate on my technique. It’s also really useful for playing guitar through - so there’s that.
I once got stopped in the street by 2 young ladies and asked if I was in x band, I said yes, and they seemed genuinely pleased to see me.
Not as pleased as I was to be recognised!
Mostly fingers for me - all of my practice time is spent playing fingerstyle unless it’s for a certain song where I want the sound of a pick.
for me it’s a green tortex (I think it’s 0.8mm).