Thanks, this is very helpful; some of the suggestions (e.g., chord melody) I'm already doing, so I'm glad that I'm a least partially on the right track!
I'm also trying to keep any breaks short--more licks built on the melody than extended improvisation. I'm currently moving through Bryan Sutton's bluegrass course on ArtistWorks, and he features an improv exercise that uses two beats of alternate bass strumming followed by two beats of playing around the scale, which is very helpful.
Another thing I'm working on is lowering the 5th and 6th strings a whole step (leaving the other strings in standard tuning), which gives me a ringing open bass note on the I and the V chords in the key of G. I thought I'd capo up from there and then have a second guitar set up with in this tuning a whole step lower in case I need to play in the key of F-->C/F/C/F/A/D.
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