I've watched a few of Patrick Costello's videos and I like them. He's a good instructor and has made some great vids!

Learning the banjo, and developing my style has made me a much better guitar player! Also, as the years progress and my banjo style evolves, my abilities have just exploded, as you say.

Today, I use a sort half-frailing style - mixed with three finger. I do some straight three finger - but I almost always have at least a bit of down-stroke frailing going on, as well.

If you watch this video you'll see the style is based upon the three finger style, but there is a lot of brushing down with the back of the nails, especially while singing. This video was from a few years ago, before I added more true frailing techniques to my style. Now when I play this song, I still consider it based on 3 finger but I do even more down stroke brushing with finger and up stroke with the thumb. My hand position is still 3 finger style, though - for the most part.

On a lot of other songs though, today my basic style is closer frailing. It probably sound more like frailing, then it looks - though. I don't have any videos of that (yet) but I have some recordings. I'll go see if I can point to one where you can hear what I mean. If so, I'll post a link.