advice from experienced growers

I am currently in the beginnings of setting up a closet grow. It is 5.8 square feet, and it is about 6ft. from the floor to the shelf. and approximately 2ft. from the shelf to the ceiling. I have a 400 watt hps/MH and a 125 watt cfl, and will soon have a exhaust system to keep the temperature and humidity at optimal levels. My question is should i sog,scrog,or just let em grow and top em? From what ive read on sog, it says i can veg 4/sqft., but then im only supposed to flower 1.sqft.? Is that right? If this method is for people who don't have alot of space, why wouldnt i just start em @ 1/sqft.? If i started 20 in a 5 square foot area, but could only end up flowering five. WTF am i supposed to do with the other 15? By the time the 5 finished flowering wouldnt the fifteen i vegged be way to big to fit in their space? Any advice or explanation of this SOG method or any other method that you think would be the most beneficial for my situation would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

primarily you would be culling males, and plants that aren't growing as well. The idea is that if you veg and flower in the same space you have space to flower X plants, but space to veg 4X plants. You maximize your space by filling it, and removing unwanted plants (males and those who grow more slowly) as they fill in and the space is diminished. You don't have to do it this way, but if you have reg seeds you have to count on getting males, and if you aren't breeding, you will want to pull those. As a general rule of thumb you can count on ~50% males (it's more like 45% in good conditions, but close enough to 50).

There is no best way to grow, however there are methods that will fit your situation better than others. For instance, with 400w, you don't want giant trees, so shorter plants will help you maximize light exposure. More smaller plants, and the cloning involved in sog, can add a little bit of a learning curve, but also gives you more room for error since you have more plants. Scrog is almost a combination of the two. You get the benefits of sog, and the light distribution, but you also can do a scrog with fewer plants. The strain differences can be rather impactual on sog/scrog as well.

Hope that helps! You might not get as much feedback here, since this really isn't an advanced topic (though I'm sure it seems that way to someone who is new to the hobby). You'd get more responses by putting this question in either the grow room design, or indoor forum.