In an ideal world I'd have 8 hrs a day I could practice but coming back down to reality with a bump and probably much the same as most my practice time isn't nearly as much as I'd like it to be.
Taking that into consideration if you were to concentrate on just one or the other do you think time is best spent working through Stick Control or going through the 40 Essential Rudiments ??
Any tips on taking those excercises and then incorporating them into fills and if there are any structured methods on how to do that would be greatly appreciated.
The simplest way is to start by playing the sticking on different surfaces. You can simply move your hands randomly to different parts of the kit, searching for sounds and textures, or you can be methodical and start, for instance, with splitting your hands between two surfaces and seeing what results. There are "implied" rhythms in many rudiments that become more obvious once the hands are split to different voices (this can also help with learning and memorising them...)
An example: Take your paradiddles and inversions (or, removing the accents, exercises 5 - 8 on pg. 5 of
Stick Control) and play them as 8th and 16th note fills with one hand on the SD and one on the High Tom. See what you can come up with. Experiment and many possibilities will present themselves.
Concentrated and purposeful study of
Stick Control or the PAS 40 (or 60, or even "the 2") will wield results. In his latest video, Tommy Igoe keeps harping on a very important idea: "simple things at a high level." It's not so much about which of these you choose to pursue, but
HOW and
HOW MUCH you work on them. If you can play every note in
Stick Control with grace and control at a variety of tempos and dynamics AND/OR you can play the PAS 40 Standard Rudiments with grace and control at a variety of tempos and dynamics you're going to have some very good technical facility with which to express yourself. Don't worry to much about which road to choose. Pick one and get at it.