Hydro isn't as hard and mysterious as people make it out to be... with that being said, if you do make a mistake, you better be on top of it.
Soil is very forgiving, albeit slow growing.
Have you thought about coco? I've tried all 3 and I'm now a coco guy, for sure. You get the forgiveness of soil, including excellent moisture retention and release, plus you get almost as good growth rates as hydro when you use a FEED, WATER, FEED, WATER cycle... along with some quality nutes.
I prefer to use "Sunshine Advanced Ultra-Coir"... Its a coco and peat mix complete with perlite and all the salts pre-rinsed out... I love it.
The only thing I've yet to try is "supersoil".