Which Veritas planes to buy

Hello everyone

I am in the rare circumstance that my partner has agreed to buy a few Veritas planes for by upcoming birthday :) I am thinking of the main three - Smooth, Jack and Jointer.

I completely understand the argument that you could buy 100 vintage planes for the price of these three, but with these planes I'd like to be the original owner, as they're a special gift and I can hand them down blah blah etc.

Now the main question I have is should I be going down the path of the 'standard' bevel down planes, or get all three in bevel up. I have read quite a few threads and as I suspected they will both do the job, and is to a point just personal preference. One advantage of the bevel up, if I understand correctly, is that the blades are all 2 1/4in wide, so you can swap blades amongst them (have different cutting angles etc).

The other tricky part is where to buy them. The dollar is terrible now, so once you convert and add on whatever shipping will be from Lee Valley, the prices from Carbatec aren't that far off.

The three bevel up I am specifically looking at are these;
Bevel-Up Smoother
http://ift.tt/1V79TLa
Low-Angle Jack
http://ift.tt/1V79TLc
Bevel-Up Jointer
http://ift.tt/1V79TLc

If it helps they will be doing a lot of table top flattening type work, of aussie hardwoods. And then obviously any and all other tasks.

So does anyone have any experience with the Veritas BU range and know of their advantages/disadvantages? Or is this a complete waste of money and I should be looking elsewhere?

Thanks