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Use an electric kit to track.
Also, as these two people mentioned, velocity controlling is so important. Tracking with an electric kit (or triggered acoustic kit) would come with that as well. If that's not a possibility to you, just check out drum solos of people like Gavin Harrisson or similar that have a good dynamic control in their playing, to see how they use each part of the kit. It will not only make your drum compositions sound more natural, but they will also start getting a "tasty"-factor to them.
Good starting points that most drummers do in their playing:
Cymbals: Not every hit is played at max velocity.
Depending on the part and how you want it to groove, either add quiet notes to middle of what you have there
For example: If you have hi-hats going in 4/4, add quiet notes to 2nd 8th-note, 4th 8th-note, 6th 8th-note note and so on). If that starts to make the composition sound hasty, just lower the velocities of 2nd 4th-note and 4th 4th-note. That sound add a certain type of depth to the beat already.
Here's some playing by Gavin:
@ 0:00, the beat itself goes in 7/4 (or 6/8, 8/8) but he's still doing this simple dynamic control to add groove to the beat. On the chorus, he moves to ride and plays it following a simple pattern of: 1th 8th-note bell relatively hard, 2nd 8th-note regular hit played quieter... and so on; you get the point!
I'm using Gavin pretty shamelessly as an example, but trust me; this is regular stuff to drummers, Gavin just happens to do it quite well and exaggerated.
For snare, he's adding ghost notes to where ever he wants to. This is a great way to remove some machine-type of sound from the drum composition too. Ghost notes usually go in between cymbal hits, and rarely over bass drum hits. They can be used as fillers if you're feeling that the beat is sounding lonely AS WELL as to anticipate a high-velocity hit on snare. (As in, doing a ghost note an 8th, or 16th note before the actual hit)
Bass drum in metal is usually just head on max velocity, but don't be afraid of experimenting.
For toms beats and fills, if you have two consecutive hits on one tom, manipulate the other one not to be at max velocity. No drummer does that. Except Lars Ulrich.
Don't randomize, infer the velocities. Your second question is a good thing to discuss though.
It all depends on your compression rate. If you're doing ghost notes, the velocities are highly dependant on the overall compression rate. The more compression, the less velocity you need in order to maintain dynamics. I too often see people have way too loud ghost notes, just because they didn't change them after they smashed the shit out of their drum mix. So use your ears and the "solo" button on your DAW. Listen with full mix, soloed drums and soloed drum shell and don't be dumb, be tasty instead!
E: To finally have some answer to your question, from 1 to 127 is a good range. However, my average velocity range is from about 80 to 127.
Use an electric kit to track.