Yes I am very opinionated about my needles :-DDDD I love clover amour for crochet and addi lace long for knitting. I recently tried again to knit with bamboo needles as my tension is always loose, but ... nahhhh. Wood and wool is strange (for me)
And with the ribbing: there are three different methods (and variations) for creating ribbing in crochet, with front and back post dc , with slip stitch crochet and with sc back loop only
All will lead to a stretchy ribbing. I personally do not like slip stitch crochet, as it is not as stretchy as the other methods.
front post / back post

back loop single crochet

Hope that helps, perhaps for the next project :-D