I have always worked with 1/4 + 1/2 because that is what Tesla writes. It is easier if you follow Richard Hull's guide, but not better. If you have 1/4 wave in your extra coil, that means it has a high voltage on one end and a high current on the other end. Having a high current on the lower end of your extra coil means that you can not have 1/4 wave in your secondary coil. Thus you can not create a resonance rise in your secondary, and it will act as a normal transformer giving an output voltage based on the windings ratio. Therefore his setup is less effective in creating very high voltages, but it is a lot easier and it allows you to use a cheaper capacitor bank.
In a 1/4 - 1/2 setup you also have a tightly coupled primary-secondary which requires very precise tuning in order to get good results.