New build coming! need opinions

[crtrrss]

Hi! I am going to be building another machine in the near future. It'll either be a candy cab (if I can find one. God forbid you allow anything that looks foreign in Alabama, so these things are rare.) or this Tekken 3 cabinet that I found in Atlanta. I'll hopefully remember to update y'all with how it goes when another thing is added and/or removed. Feel free to critique any step in the process. I am trying to make this awesome and you people have been making these things as awesome as possible for a long time. So, without further adieu, here are my questions before I start:

1. What buttons do y'all recommend? I had some LED ones that were very hard to use repetitively, so I hated them for most games. I have used a machine with gold leaf buttons, and it was almost perfect. My only reason for not choosing these without a doubt is that I love the LED effect. Is there some type of LED button out there that doesn't suck to use?

2. I have seen multiple kits on eBay and other sites that have built in encoders. Will these encoders work with the wizardry known as BetaBrite?

3. How do you generate a XML file for your romsets for a FE? I have screwed this up by following a dozen or so guides that all say to use different software and all of this unnecessary BS with no avail.

4. In my last build, I completely abandoned the original CRT after it had a little spasm and died. In the next one I'm getting, the monitor WILL work and I WILL keep it. Will an adapter like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/120967456688?lpid=82&chn=ps one work well? For example, would windows be able to do its magic like with any other monitor and detect its resolution, size, etc..?

5. I had the same problem with joysticks as I did with buttons. The 8-way POS that I got (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Multi-Color-Illuminated-LED-Lighted-Arcade-Joystick-switchable-4-or-8-way-JS4-/331327358088?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4d24a64488) was just awful with most everything. It especially sucked with 4 way games like Pac-Man. Even the slightest jolt of upward motion would make this thing go diagonal, which just stops you in PacMan. Again, is there any compromise between LED look and amount of suckiness here?

Thanks,



Carter

P.S. If I get the Tekken, y'all are free to have dibs on any of the original parts (except the Power Supply and monitor). They are all fully functional according to the current owner.