on anything going inside the engine i would tend to stick with oem or at least well known parts. you dont want to save 50 bucks on parts and wind up spending another 300 in labor to replace them again.

it sounds like this mechanic has made you a very large list, have you verified that all of this needs to be done?

if your water pump really is leaking, its a good idea to replace the timing belt at the same time. how many miles on your vx? when the top of my lower radiator hose went bad, it leaked in the same area as the water pump would have, and dripped onto the serpentine belt. (not to be confused with the timing belt which is inside the engine)

Often when the blower motor resistor goes bad, it will cause the blower motor to stop working properly, often it will work only on "high", are you sure the motor needs to be replaced too?

why does he think the thermostat needs to be replaced? no real way to tell without opening the engine up.. granted if you are in there for the water pump its not a bad idea, just want to know why.

the upper and lower radiator hoses are easily accessible, i think book time to replace them both is like 0.7 hours, if the water pump is being done at the same time, it saves time draining coolant, but thats the only advantage to doing it at the same time.

the lower ball joint would not really cause a bumpy ride, it would cause a noisy ride and maybe a shimmy at high speeds. if the boot is torn or there is play in the joint it should be replaced.

as far as your bearings are concerned, you would know they need to be replaced by the wheel feeling loosely connected to the vehicle even if the lugnuts are tight. or putting your hand on the upper control arm and spinning the tire you will feel a grinding/vibration. if your front brakes are in any sort of bad shape, you may as well replace them as the pads and rotors come off to replace the front wheel bearings anyway

tomorrow morning when i go into work i will give you exact book times on all of the work you are having done so you can compare it to the numbers he is giving you