The cue is a personal preference and no matter what cue you have you must learn to master that cue. Make the cue become and extension of your arm, know everything about it and understand how to use it in everyway possible

That all depends on who you are ? you need to find areas of the game which you lack in and work to improve these areas. The Peaks try and get all the peaks even, there is no use in being able to pot long balls and not  have a good short game.

Drills help improve your game, Each drill helps work on certain parts of your game.

You can experiment with side anytime but don’t use things you haven ‘t practices to a certain level in games.

Once you have learned the basic fundamentals being able to make the cue ball do things you want it to become much easier.