Conversion Of Mill to CNC (LONG)

Although I have been monitoring this list for some time this is my
first post. I am a complete novice at both milling and CNC so need the
help and advice of the very experienced and knowledgeable members of
this list.

I have recently purchased a GEM500G mill/drill from Busy Bee. Yes I am
in Canada. The mill has a 32 x 9.5" table and is a gear head mill with
dovetail column. It has a x axis travel of 18", y axis travel of 14"
and a z axis travel of 18.25". It is my intention to convert this mill
to CNC. There are pictures of this mill in the photos section. It is
the mill of Allan Reinhard who is also a member of this group. He has
also converted his mill to CAC using 720 oz/in steppers and Geko drives.
From what I have been able to pick up, servos seem to be a better
alternative than steppers. Is this true and what are the advantages
disadvantages of each? I want to have enough power to make sure that I
never have a problem and am inclined to ere on the higher power side.
I was looking at Sanyo-Denki P1 series servos, the 1kW size, 2000 rpm.
This servo has a rated torque of 665.5 oz/in and a continuous stall
torque of 835.5 oz/in. I was told that this was overkill and that a
425 peak oz/in 2500 rpm servo would work fine with a 3 to 1 gear-belt
drive. I am sure that this is correct at least for the x and y axes.
However the z axis(Column)takes more manual power to move especially
up and I like the idea of all axes motors being the same. I want the
simplest cleanest(neat) and most trouble free system possible. Yes I
want a lot!
What are others opinions on this? Is gear-belt drive superior to a
direct drive?
I like the Camtronics kits and the idea of getting everything from one
place like Dan offers. However I have to consider that if I ever need
to replace or repair any part of the system, items that are available
here in Canada would be preferred.
I am not going to go into ball screws yet but I know that these will
depend on the motors that I choose (pitch) so comments on these would
also be appreciated.
I am sure that I will continue to have lots of questions but will stop
at this for now. Thanks for your patience especially if you have read
this far!

Wayne