I have used normal rubber cable 3g2.5 combined with spiral waist leash. Keeps the cable out of the water. Use plastic strips in both ends to offload the cable vs leash stretch.
Overboard 4liter waist bag works great with 12s2p and Flycolor 150A Esc. No cooling needed.
Flycolor 150A is in my opinion the absolute best controller available on Aliexpress. Works right out of the box, no need to configure anything, no problems with overheating and synchronization.
Better than XCross 160? I know people have had problems with XCross but the only issue we have found is that they cut out over approx 2000W. Have used at least 10 and no failures at all with XCross as foil assist.