2 months with BEAD (+1 bass skill level)

I'm not much of a bass player, playing "up-the-neck" is not in my vocabulary.
Bass isn't my first, second, or even third instrument. All I have is one Fender J.
I am also a three fingered fretter, my pinky isn't strong enough to fret a bass.
But what I could do I could do without looking much at the fretboard
and I could read a chord chart in any key, but some keys were hard ya know.

So you get the idea, on a scale of 1-10 I rank myself a three at best,
where 1 is never picked up a bass at all.

All I wanted with BEAD was to do some octaves and stay down low while doing it.
Ok, that much worked, it took a week of practice and I was semi-comfy with BEAD,
I could do what I always did in the new tuning.

But living with BEAD longer term has caused me to change in unexpected ways.
- it drove me up the neck, which in turn:
- forced me to do a decent setup for the first time, action was way too high, which in turn:
- enabled me to use my weak pinky (big surprise - cough) which in turn allowed me to:
- start using the one finger per fret four finger spread, which in turn:
- is allowing me to play all kinds of bass lines I could never play before, and in any key!
I know right? Who knew?

So... yeah, I'm glad I switched to BEAD. And maybe I'm a four now...

Now I'm thinking about a five string, but am worried the wider neck will cause
problems for my still pitifully weak pinky. And muting 5 strings sounds hard,
I have enough trouble with 4. But the itch won't go away...

Now I am reading the 5 string conversion thread... And the injury thread...
I have no idea how this is going to end up... I think that's what makes it fun.