First CTR owner

So I recently bought my CTR about 3 months ago. I've driven this car a lot and maybe about 5k miles. Im not a professional at driving this car but im starting to get the hang of it and all. Ive driven manual cars in the past but I just wanted to see if its a good idea to change into a short throw shifter or if i should stay with the OEM for now. I've seen some pros and cons about this but i wanted to see everyone else input about this if i can get some advice for this. I'm open to any suggestions about this though!

PS: This is out of topic but i just changed my oil today and told me that CTR have common rear brake pads tend go faster than front ones and was measured at 4mm. Im just trying to figure out how much life I have left in these before having to change them out. TYIA