I've used picato, la bella and Rotosound, sonically picato flats are very thumpy in tone, closer to la bella. Rotos have more mids.
The choice is yours.
Yeah I could kick myself for selling this on... I felt at the time that I should have a Fender.... the Mex precision I ended up with sounded nowhere near as good.
Yes, my 80's Foundation was a better build - I loved the earlier bridges especially - it felt an altogether more solid bass.
Sound wise I'd say there's not too much between them.
Maybe the earlier bass had slightly more definition in the sound.
I have an early 90's version at the moment, sounds like a jazz on steroids with the super ferrite pickups.
This is currently my fifth Peavey and is my bass for gigs.