How to play a shape shifting druid?

I am playing a moon druid on a new run as part of a summons based party and it has been fun. I love the versatility of shapes - the web ability of the spider shape, the force critical ability of the wolf shape and so on.

I took tavern brawler (+1 to constitution) at level 4 since it is so busted. A few questions for experienced druid players:

1. The moon druid's bonus action shapeshift seems to encourage casting a spell on the first round before shifting. If I begin a combat in wildshape, my dexterity scores are not great and thus my initiative is poor. So far, I have been casting spike growth and then shifting to a raven since it can fly through the difficult terrain. Moonbeam and call lightning cannot be recast in wild shape taking the sting out of those spells. Also, should I be picking feats like warcaster to make it less likely to lose concentration? The utility of casting a concentration spell on the first round seems limited to me at this moment. I was thinking of taking a level in white dragon sorcerer to get armor of agathys and then cast it with my highest spell level. Sorcerer also gives concentration proficiency, which I assume carries over to wildshape form. What other spells are worth casting before shape shifting?

2. What feats outside of TB are considered good for wildshape? Which of them carry over to wildshape? I am mostly interested in the animal wildshapes. Savage attacker I think would only apply to the myrmidions and that's pretty late in the game. Does the resilient feature carry over to wildshape? I noticed a lot of odd stats in wildshape - 17 con for owlbear, 15 dex for the panther, 13 con/15 dex for the sabretooth tiger. Can these be fixed with the corresponding resilient feat?

3. Which of the special +stat game events carry over to wildshape? Does ethel's hair carry over? How about the +2 str potion from Araj?

4. Any other tips on how to play a shape shifting druid? Does a land druid make for a good shape shifting druid? Their spell selection seems better but losing a whole action on wild shape seems hard, though they are able to caste haste on themselves so maybe not so bad?