1) If you want to make a cotrol retain a specific value, right clock on the control and select Data Operations>Make Current Value Default. Most of the time, an instrument driver is called by another VI and I prefer to explicitly define the resource name in the calling VI for documentation purposes so I never set the default.
2) You get dtat from an instrument by doing a VISA Read. You need to provide the resource name and the number of bytes you expect to read. Usually, you do not get any data without first writing to the instrument and requesting data. The command you write is a query. The exact data you read will all depend on the nature of the query. You will read data in the form of strings. The strings will need to be converted if you want to perform numeric operations on them.
3) You write to an instrument using VISA Write. Again you need to specify the resource name. The write buffer input is the command you need to send to the instrument. Instruments that comply with 488.2 will support a standard set of commands for doing some basic queries. One such command is *IDN?. When the instrument receives this, it will reply with some information about itself such as manufacturer and model number. Other commands to set up measurement parameters are unique to each instrument and you have to get those from the manual. You'll need to study this to get the correct syntax. It may be similar to your old instrument but it may be completely different.
Before you start to do any LabVIEW coding, I would recomend you spend most of your time in MAX and issuing interactive commands there. You should also read the shipping document called LabVIEW Measurments Manual (Help>Search the LabVIEW Bookshelf). Lastly, the
Instrument Driver Network has some links to what an instrument driver is and how to develop one. There are a set of templates available that can greatly simplify your job.