What a wonderful birthday gift! I have the Crop in Style Navigator (now called NaNavigator) and I love it. It's just the right size to hold a lot of stuff and still small enough that it's not too hard to store or to lift if I want to take it somewhere fully loaded. I have never had any issues with Crop in Style products either and I have quite a few of them. I'm actually looking into the paper holder that they have on wheels (looks like the NaNavitagor but designed to hold just paper).
As for the best magazine, I prefer Paper Kuts because the layouts they feature look like something that I could actually attempt and be happy with even though I'm not an artist. So many of the SB magazines have great layouts but they are way to intricate or just really out of my league.
Good luck making your decisions! HTH S