I hear you on the whole jack of all trades and master of none - and yet that didn't stop me buying some air dry clay to play with instead of practicing more with my watercolours...😂
I've got a set of Ohuhu alcohol markers which have chisel and fine point tips - they are pretty good alternatives to Copic (and way cheaper!). Your Blick ones sound good but the shipping cost would be too high, if they even ship to the UK.

Re: paper, Ohuhu do marker paper pads too, which are nice to use surface-wise but the ink does completely bleed through, which I didn't think it was supposed to.