I too am amazed how easy my 9A is to land. I just roll it on. I tell people it's not me, it's the plane.
Even though most of my time is in taildraggers, I went with the 9A because of the possibility of lower insurance costs (mine is pretty reasonable) and the fact that I will probably grow old(er) with this plane so I wanted it very easy. That's not to say that the taildragger is hard. I've only had a single flight in an RV taildragger so I don't know but it sounds pretty docile.
I also remembered way back when I rented 172s I got very good at very smooth landings. I couldn't always do that in my Aeronca Sedan. But, this RV, oh man...EASY. It's very consistently smooooth! I also like the visibility of a NW...not that the TW version is really bad but with the NW, you have a front row seat.
As far as looks, I can honestly say that I like them both. Yes, the TW looks way cool sitting on the ground but I love how tall the tail is with the NW. Of course, my 9A is the most beautiful in the world because it's mine and I built it!!
Here are some things to think about
:
-The TW actually has steering on the ground, the NW does not. If you lose one of your brakes in the TW, you can still steer. However, this is a very rare occurance but something that I didn't really think about. I remember once in the Aeronca one of my brakes got spongy but I felt comfortable flying home to fix it because it too had a steerable TW. I probably would think twice before doing that in my 9A. I do have to say that the large rudder ends up being effective at steering at a pretty low taxi speed.
-There have been incidences of the A models nosing over. I think with the Anti-Splat device, improved NW design, and good technique, this has been pretty much overcome. Still, I'm a bit apprehensive about landing on anything but a hard surfaced runway but A models do it all the time and in fact, I did my transition training with Mike Segar off a grass strip in a 6A. Now, an emergency off field landing might get exciting in an A model.
Either one will be a good choice. Build the plane you want and don't look back. You'll be happy with either one.