TheLowDown

A bass mug https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/335021825055

Some cracking bands listed so far which happen to be amongst my current faves for the last several years, such as Haggis Horns, the New Mastersounds. More good stuff includes The Underbelly featuring Roxie Ray, Dojo Cuts, Lack of Afro,...

Pretty much anything from Incognito and Brand New heavies, such as edit: oops, just noticed that it's about the Acid Jazz label rather than genre. Should have gone to Specsavers.

I stopped selling after the forced move to 'managed payments' away from using Paypal.

Absolutely! I'm a hardcore list guy, I keep lists of pretty much everything. Possibly as a means of security.

Currently the only chocolate I eat is 100% cocoa dark chocolate, nothing added. The nutritional info shows only 2.7g of sugar per 100g.

Not surgery as such.

Absolutely not. If I was ever hung up enough on my appearance to want to use surgery to change it, I would think that the problem lies elsewhere with me. You often see people who have had surgery where further down the line, they look far worse than if they'd not had it at all when they were younger.

Each to their own, and many people have their own personal choices which work for them. But as it's a recommendation to the OP who wants tips for transitioning from the 4 to the 5 string, I'm recommending floating thumb as it's a good and effective technique that's versatile for almost any situation and for any number of strings. I would consider techniques which are effective and versatile over those which are just easier or quick to get to grips with

What do you consider to be equally as good or better then?

Treat the 5 string as a whole rather than as a 4 string with an added B string. What I mean is, it's useful to understand how each of the 5 strings relate to each other in terms of intervals. This allows you to get a more flexible mind map of the fretboard. Floating thumb is a must, and I think it's the best way however many strings are used. And to keep your thumb approximately on the centre of the back of the neck

I don't see any issue with the headstock in the OP.

The shape of the headstock is pretty low down in my priorities. Unless it's impractical in any way then it shouldn't matter IMO, and I don't really see anything impractical about it.

Actually, it's a significant cost to create content. For example

The former. Spending more doesn't necessarily give you more, and the law of diminishing returns of price against quality is pretty low IMO - around £300-500 being the sweet spot - because of cheap labour and CNCs. Basses are simple modular things. The only practical advantage of buying one pricier bass rather than several lower priced basses is that of choice for if you have absolute specific requirements for a particular model, for whatever reason. Ideally I would prefer a more middle ground of 3 or 4 basses because it's highly unlikely that I would ever want to have only 1 expensive bass. Tastes change, situations change, requirements change.