"Old git, stiff hands, very little practice outside band rehearsals, too much else to do! Would love to be Jack Bruce but it ain't gonna happen."
"I have settled into a style where I move position instead of reaching for the note with hand span. Lots of sliding, often on a fretless, and I quite like it. Also, I suffer badly from having a bass on my shoulder for any length of time, a lighter bass would be good."
You've just described me to a T! I've tried a fair bit of short-stuff - that's all I play now - and would suggest you go for something with good balance (i.e. top strap button at or around the 12th fret), good tonal range, slim/solid body, at least 20 frets and (as already suggested) standard string spacing at the bridge. My Fender Rascal ticks all those boxes but is a bit heavy on the shoulder at 9.5 lbs. Soooo, the journey continues, the next stop being one of Scott Whitley's SWB-1s as mentioned above. If, as Scott says, there are no balance issues, then it could turn out to be my ideal bass. If so, the SWB-1 and my Hofner Club will be the two 'keepers'. I ordered Scott's bass cos I like the guy and what he's doing for the UK bass community. If I hadn't, I would have been looking at a s/s Warwick Corvette, though I'm not a big fan of their IMHO clumsy top-bout design.
Sad (retired) bugger that I am, I've put together an Excel spreadsheet with spec's of most of the s/s basses out there (includes weights, fret-board radius, number of frets, top strap-button location etc). If you're interested, PM me with your e-mail address and I'll send it to you. I really need to get out more...