Looks good. You could also try “Noise Strength” in “Shell Settings” for a bit of extra noise. Another thing to consider is to somehow use the emporarAA feature/node to break up the looks further.
If you are not using “Fur Guides” then yes, the vertex normal controls the initial direction.
For the most control, you could use Hair and Fur in 3dsmax or similar in other 3d packages. Most or all of them have the concept of shaping the hair/fur via spline guides. These can be exported to UE and gFur will import them correctly. You can then use those as “Fur Guides”. gFur will take length and also how they are bend from those guides. The most important thing is that these guides need to “grow” from the mesh vertexes. Only those count for gFur.