re: ROTH IRA better than traditional for my situation?

I would say it is, for the obvious reasons.

Someone alluded earlier on the board that, being so young, the benefit of not paying taxes up front from the traditional IRA offset the money you put into a Roth. The whole principle behind that is the time-value of money, being able to compound more of your actual earnings and so on.

I'm not exactly sure which one is the best vehicle, but both are great tools. Need to do more research on the subject, but those are my thoughts