Hard to recommend the best way to go. It's such a personal decision.
As for hosting a bunch of small sites - I have a new 5 Star client coming on board next week.
www.Hostland.com. They have a phenomenal reseller package. You can have up to 5,000 web sites on one host account. Instead of reselling you just put all your sites there. Or individual site hosting is 7.95 a month. With the 7.95 site they offer inlimited subdomains which is another very inexpensive way to make a bunch of mini-sites. Instead of buying a bunch of domains and hosting each seperately you just add to main site like this.
www.mainsite.com -
http://sports.mainsite.com -
http://bizopp.mainsite.com -
http://shoes.mainsite.com
Here's my new hosting client with the great rates and also a SUPER strong and high paying affiliate program.
http://www.hostland.com/
Hope this helps and best of luck!