Sounds like you have it going, but I'd still consider upgrading to a decent drum vst like they said above, bfd or addictive drums... keep an eye on them and you'll find a bargain price eventually.  they also have midi hits that u can drag into the song, and very good kits with nice sounding effects and spatial sounds.

in the meantime, learn how to enable quantizing on record.

Cactus Music

Thanks , OK so Session drummer is junk? I guess you get what you pay for. 
Isn't Ez drummer included free somewhere around here? 
I have Groove agent too via Cubase, might try that.. 

Funny I don't ask for much,,, but open hi hat is like a bare bones drum sound and I can't believe SD won't do it, it must,,, I'm not giving up.. I have a couple of very good kits set up with it so hate to change., I have no money, waiting for my first $400 a month pension check ! :(

Session Drummer 3 is actually a very powerful program. One cool thing you can do is, you can drag any sample in to it in the Mixer section where the icons are.

One thing you'll find though ... you'll have to do some surgical EQ'ing. For example, I use the GroovyKit_ Brushes all the time. The snare has a nasty ring to it that has to be EQ'd out. I use Sonitus with a Q of 24 and cut 480Hz out. But in order to do that, you have to assign each drum to it's own audio output. I see in your sig you're using 8.5. You have to set the outputs up manually in 8.5, but X1/X2 comes with a Template that has it all laid out for you. I started a blank project in 8.5 and set it all up and saved it as a Template. I don't use 8.5 anymore and don't have the template or I'd gladly provide a link to download it.

In order to get the most out of SD3, you really need to take the time to set up the audio outputs, and put the PX-64 Percussion Strip on every audio output. All the samples are processed, and you can take the reverb and 'room' out of each drum with the PX-64 PS.

Basically what the audio outputs do is, allow you to add effects to each individual drum. SD3 comes with 12 audio outputs. One for each sample in the Mixer section. The Cowbell is hidious. It's got a ring and a buzz to it. There's a few clunkers like that, but it is a very useful program, especially since it comes with Sonar.

I have a set of Rock Band drums. You can get free software off the net to set it up as a midi drum set. I set it up with SD3 and used it and it worked great! I felt stupid clicking around on a toy drum set, but there's something about playing live that the Step Sequence just can't match.

Basically all Session Drummer 3 is, is a sampler. It's going to sound only as good as the samples that are fed to it.

Hey Bub Thanks!  that's good info, And after I figured out the SFX thing I figured SD is just fine, I'm sure those other programs are good, but I'm broke and try and use what I've got.  All I need is a simple set up for now. 
I'll play with the mixer and stuff as you say and see whats hidden away in there. It's like boring old TTS-1 is actually very powerful if you dig into it a little deeper than most people bother to do. The mixer has 2 efxs sends that you can do a lot with if you want to. There are even way more sounds hidden away that do not show on the regular properties lists and banks. 

So I guess Session drummer is the same. Up till now I've just loaded different sounds from the file folders and that's it. I didn't even discover the mixer until very recently. This all takes time, My guess is at least 4 years to figure out most features in depth. That's why I'm not bothering to think about upgrading Sonar. Why pay for more features when I haven't used the ones I got right now.