I much prefered Vishay over Welwyn. I have a 24 step attenuator with welwyn and to my ears going back to a pot with vishay shunt was far better, ymmv.

I had BG on B+ smoothing, but one of them gave up the ghost and i havent managed to replace it. So back to standard cheapies at the. Waiting on some panasonic FD's to try at the mo.

To be honest the difference of BG over cheapie was not huge. Again, i imagine it depends where they are used.

As for alternatives, where do you want to start? There are so many to try.