More effcient/easy mapping: 2D rotated plane, or 3D model?

Hi guys, we're finally getting around to figuring out how we want to do mapping for a real-time strategy RPG using 2D assets, and I thought I'd get some opinions or help on how we should do our mapping. This is our first game made in Unity, so I want to make sure we're not overlooking some potential performance issues or easy solution.

Basically, we are exploring mapping options for a game similar to Ogre Battle: MotBQ. Here's a gameplay sample of their mapping and movement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UNpZLXZl2w#t=57

Basically, this is a 2D tilemap that is drawn to a plane and the plane is rotated away from the camera. The characters that move on the map are billboarded to the camera.

The other option we are exploring is using a 3D model for the maps themselves, and billboarding the sprites such as:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20ISriddgpw#t=149

So those are the two options we are considering. In either case, we're finding that the billboard effect of the sprites creates kind of a cool "pop-up book" effect. Here's our required components:

-Billboarded sprites for characters, trees, buildings (we aren't building 3D models for objects, only the terrain itself)
-Tile editing for easy map building

Basically, I'm wondering if anyone has feedback on which approach would be more versatile in Unity, or things you've done that might be of help to us. We'll need to read terrain values and parameters from the 2D/3D tiles, and also need pretty good pathfinding. I know you can import properties of 2D tiles from Tiled Map Editor, which theoretically would allow us to do that?

If we went 3D, would we want to use a tile editor like Tile Ed, ProTile, or React Ed? I'm assuming this would be the most efficient way to build maps instead of importing from Maya or Blender since we have to attach properties to the tiles. Does anyone have experience with these assets?

I'm rambling here, but basically does anyone have advice or pros/cons to either approach?