Sure Ian
Several upstrokes in a row would be sweep-picking.
Economy picking takes something from that, in that the idea is to move directly to the next string. I used to be an economy picker, had developed that in high school, mainly because I found it easier, and could see no reason to change.
When I started studying music after school, one of my first tutors discussed the pros and cons of the whole thing - and I changed then. It took a while, as I had several years of playing the other way under my belt by then.
I found that moving directly to another string tended to make the notes all blur into one another. Moving to alternate picking - down on the beat, up off the beat - enabled me to create greater distinction. I found it also encompassed greater dynamic possibilities - I think Larry Carlton is one of the finest players in this regard.
In terms of greater rhythmic control, I found that after some time working on it, I could sense when to play up or down, according to whether the note fell on the beat or not.
It took a lot of work for me to get that right, and undo a lot of other things in my playing that were causing me all sorts of grief.
At the moment I am really examing my technique again - I want to be able to make the notes pop out of the guitar when I start playing fast. I am able to get fairly good volume when I move up a gear or two - and I have really found the past 6 months or so my fingers can really fly - but I want to be able to sound like Al Di Meola on his acoustic. It sounds like he good bust a string at any moment.
I will also qualify all of this by saying that it really depends on what you want to play. BB King plays mainly downstrokes to really dig into the notes. I think Hendrix really did whatever he felt like at the time, but there were not many runs or complex picking passages in his music either.
I think with all things, it is good to determine what you want from the guitar, and then move forward from there. I strongly encourage people to be able to articulate why that are going with a particular approach. There are pros and cons to almost everything, but being able to identify those and then make a decision is important as we move forward as players. Those people who go 'I just bash through it/play whatever causes the least amount of pain/ this is easy, I don't like hard work' will generally be playing the same way in a year, 2 years, 5 years.
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