Guys-
Actually in the end I 'saw the light' & after some experimentation found my delay pedal sounded fine in the front end after all- kind of cool with the ludicrous amount of compression/gain on tap from the Expression that I could turn the delay level right down and the distorted echoes just made it sound like an old tube/tape echo! You were right to advise me against further mods- the amp sounds so sweet as it is... I have made a true bypass for the delay to avoid tone sucking & actually built a new 'mini me' pedal board with just the delay / tuner / clean boost pedals on it, and now just re-discovering doing everything from the guitar... got my first gig with the Expression tomorrow- I'm looking forward to frightening the drummer!