I think you're making a wise choice.
While new technology is sometimes "breakthrough" success.... I can't help but wonder if in some cases it isn't merely "marketing". (Sort of like the new wave of "designer bullets" ammunition-makers seem to be putting out these days....i.e., we know a copper-nickle-clad lead slug sent at 2200 fps will kill deer effectively. But they seem intent on convincing us that we need bullets with plastic-inserts in the nose, black-Teflon powder-coated, and with nickle-plated cases ignited with chromed primers, and packaged in a camoflauge-colored box illustrated with Zombies, priced 50% more.)
The recent spate of coatings on cylinder walls were efforts to come up with a fool-proof breakin process for those who won't listen to old-timers who told them to run 'em hard-and-fast with non-AD mineral oil. The noobies to the game wanted assurances they could buy AD multi-grade oil and, either inadvertently (usually for lack-of-time) or by choice (laziness), violate every known method of proper break-in and still get a reasonable outcome of their new cylinders.
It makes no difference the majority of owners who go to the expense of new cylinders will in-fact meticulously nurture those things through the process just as worried ...no, probably MORE worried....than they would have if they'd simply bought a more common/plain product. And when those new technology magic coatings don't work....what then?
Sometimes the new-coating advocates are merely looking for a way to keep the insides from rusting because the KNOW they'll not be flying 300 hours each year and they're looking for extra protection against rust from inactivity.
But cylinder walls are not the only things in there that suffer from inactivity and rust, and the cylinder coatings don't help THEM. Besides, there's other ways to protect against internal rust which will.
While there are situations in this industry where a batch has had too-much/too-little nitride applied...or an occasional "soft" temper.... It's pretty much an axiom that new, first-run, steel cylinders do exactly what they are supposed to do, with the only drawback being they'll rust if not flown regularly. Or... STORED PROPERLY.
But even if they rust a little,...in almost all cases they'll still run to TBO if not otherwise abused....and they always break-in with simple, well-established techniques. (I'll never get over the twin IO-470s in the Baron I bought which had been sitting for ten years tied-down outside in New Smyrna Beach, Florida in the rain and seacoast conditions. Those steel cylinders were so rusted above the top ring I was CERTAIN the TCM Field Rep was going to insist on a rebuild before further flight! Instead,...he said "RUN "EM!" I did for five-years, then sold the airplane and now, another twelve years passed, the owners has those same engines and cylinders still pulling that bird around the sky with his family on-board only about 50 hours a year with no problems and no oil consumption to complain of.)
If I'm buying used, overhauled cylinders that have been run more than once (which I'll almost never be caught doing) I'll probably buy well-known channel-chrome.
But for my personal choice, it will be NEW cylinders. And if NEW cylinders are available, I don't need catchy, new, fashionable whiz-bang, trick-manufacturing techniques. I want standard, old-technology, dependable, ORIGINAL steel because I KNOW what they will do.
But that's just me.
Keep us posted on your progress, Bill,.. OK?