Stampers - Cubes vs. Full Size Pads

my black ink pads (dye and pigment) are full size but I generally get cubes otherwise - I don't use colours as much and the cubes work fine for my purposes and are easier to store. The way I use ink pads/cubes is to bring the ink to the stamp so it doesn't need to be a big surface

I apologize in advance that my answer isn't helpful to solve your dilemma. I'm not a cardmaker & only use inks for minimal mixed media (ie basic staping, stenciling, inking edges) on layouts. I initially purchased only cubes (e.g. VersaMark, VersaFine, VersaColor, VersaMagic, Brillance) in an array of colors but rarely used & eventually donated all of them. Currently, I own zero cubes & five full-sized pads - VersaMark plus VersaFine Clair in Morning Mist, Nocturne, Twilight, & Pinecone - due to availability (VersaFine Clair is only offered in full-size pads) & accessibility (only full sized pads of both VersaMark & select VersaFine Clair colors are stocked at local big box craft stores & included in weekly sales).  

I went from FS to mini's because of the space/storage factor with no regrets. I prefer to ink blend and do techniques with Distress inks. If I used regular dye inks more then maybe I would switch, but only as needed. I have purchased a few of my most used Distress Inks in FS.

I started stamping back when larger pads were what were available. There were Cat’s Eye inkpads, but they were a pain to ink up a larger stamp. I personally prefer the larger inkpads, and I also prefer a felt pad. I have a white foam pigment inkpad that deteriorated over the years. The last time I tried to use it, my stamp left a permanent impression, and it was a mess.

The advantages (for me) to buy ink cubes or the small teardrop shaped inkpads are that I can buy more colors for my money, and they take up less room to store. Really prefer the bigger inkpads overall.

5 mini set for the Party line
and 4 minis from the Spa collection.
Only 3 set missing as of now Luxe, Apothecary and the Browns. And the Grays- but this has only 3 colors

I have a mixture of both. I have both sizes of Stampin Up inks. I have minis of all the Distress Inks, archival distress, Pink Fresh inks, a few Catherine Pooler, and a few Concord & 9th. I do have a few Concord & 9th full size. I also have VersaFine Clair and Distress Oxides in full size. I personally feel that I get a better stamped image with foam pad. For ink blending I'm finding it doesn't matter if the pad is foam or felt/linen. I like my full size for at home but tend to go to crops quite a bit and like my minis for that. So, I'm not really much help. I like my "newer" full size (foam pad) Stampin Up inks for stamping and my Pink Fresh minis for ink blending. I love that Pink Fresh were sold as a set of four minis in an "ombre" of the color.
For me a pad that is foam and mini would win out over full and felt/linen.

If you're in a hurry to have this resolved, the full-sized ink pads might be your best bet; Pinkfresh is out of stock on most of their reinkers at the moment. I have been checking daily and unless they restocked earlier today they only have a few reinkers in their inventory. They mentioned awhile back that they are redoing their packaging, so hopefully they'll get the new inkers in stock soon. I grabbed a few of the older available reinkers recently when they had them on sale, but they don't have many colors left at all. If you know of a place that currently has the reinkers in stock, please share!

Anyway, you might enjoy having both the ink cubes and the larger sized ink pads in your stash. I like having both full-sized ink pads and smaller ink pads to work with. I like using the small ones for inking around paper edges and also for stamping small images. I like the full-sized ink pads for stamping larger stamps.

I live at high altitude, and the air is so dry up here, I'm at the point where I won't buy any ink pad unless a reinker is available for it. If I can't buy the reinker at the time I buy the ink pad, I'm probably not going to buy the ink pad. And I might buy the reinker without the ink pad -- which is a likely scenario with light-colored inks that I would want to use for making backgrounds but not for stamping sentiments or larger images.

So for me, the reinker is the top priority, and it's only a secondary consideration what size the ink pad is.

For ink blending, I'd prefer to skip using an ink pad at all. I take a reinker and apply the ink directly to the ink blending tool. I can use an ink pad if it comes to that, but it isn't my first choice.

Add me to the list of people who prefer the felt ink pads, except for one situation: I like small squishy, foamy ink pads for inking paper edges. The old Fluid Chalk teardrop shaped pads were my go-to for that -- miss them so much!

When I started collecting the PinkFresh inks, I went with full-size pads. I already have a set of Gina K in the minis. I prefer the full size pads for ink blending with brushes, it seems like with the minis it takes FOREVER to get the brush inked up But for most stamping with my stamp platform - especially sentiments - I prefer the cubes. I'm better able to control where I'm putting my ink and get more on the stamp and less on the platform with a cube.

It probably would have been smarter to have both my cubes and my full size pads be the same brand, so they would use the same reinkers, but I wasn't bright enough to figure that out ahead of time!

I've gone hard in on cubes to acquire a large selection of colors in a short amount of time without breaking the bank or taking up a huge amount of space. I sort of assumed that if I found myself using a lot of a few particular colors, I'd upgrade those to full-size.

As others have mentioned, I did get full size in basic black, pigment white, embossing, and no-line coloring gray. When I did my Christmas card in a batch of 20 or 25, I bought the ink I used to stamp them in a full-size and I imagine I would do that in similar circumstances going forward.

I've purchased 3 or maybe 4 layering stamp sets, but found them too hard to use without a positioning tool. I'll have one of those shortly. It will be interesting to see how much I like them once I do. I can see that you really need a selection of gradient sets like Altenew and Gina K make to use those well, so maybe I will end up with some in full size.

But other than layering stamps and sometimes sentiments, I don't see that one actually stamps in all those colors. As others have noted, they get used for ink-blended backgrounds, stenciling and maybe ink-watercoloring. But maybe even with those applications, I'll find myself returning to some colors over and over and want full size.

It's my own little 2023 magical mystery tour! I can't wait to see how it develops, but it's also really interesting to hear about other folks' journeys.

I'm getting the Stamping' Up stamparatus.

That is lovely to hear, cbet. It's often hard to get reviews of SU products, but I found a few platform comparison videos. It seemed from them like it was going to work well for me.

And I learned way more than I cared to about the MISTI lady....