frazerburns19 wrote:ill be honest man, do whatever works/feels/sounds best. Its good to have your technique at a place where you could do the same lick with each of those methods if you wanted (if your playing over an aggressive track then the rhythmic staccato of alternate picking might work best for THAT situation, etc). My only issue with focusing on playing licks with economy picking is that its too inconsistent, and if you want to improvise runs on the spot in a live situation, your gonna stumble with what direction to pick in, because you wont have played that specific run before.
At least with alternate picking, you can improvise picking runs all day because you dont have to think 'am i doing an upstroke into the next string here? or a down-stroke????'
Not to discourage you from economy picking (i used it myself), merely letting you know that just because its harder, doesnt make it better.
Good luck man, let us know how you get on 
I appreciate your thoughts here, Frazer!
Regarding economy picking... We are all wired a bit differently and seem to favor different approaches. For me, economy picking is not really a harder approach, just a different one. For some situations it seems to be an easier one and for others, not so much. In terms of improvising using the technique, I hear what you're saying. However, for me it is just about getting things well enough underhand that I don't have to consciously think about the mechanics of it and just think about the sounds or notes I want. So, lots of meedley, meedley time to a click track ahead of time so that it works when I need it to.
What I'm really trying to consider before going into the woodshed with a new technique or run, etc, is will I be learning it the right way and not have to unlearn or retrain myself later. This is always harder than doing it right to begin with! LOL! What the "right way" is is, of course, subjective, but I try to consider things like economy of motion, the timbre (such as the staccato of alt picking or the legato of hammer on/pull of, such as you mentioned), how controllable it will be for me, how well I'll be able to accent the notes I want, and how I will be able to tie it in to other things that I do. So, a bit of thought before the work really commences. 
