I'm not an expert and it's been a long long time since I played but...
1) I found playing the villain's side to be more challenging, although the missions were way "Better"....although the original missions on the hero's side have they're charm as well...COH/COV was a great game.
2) it depends if you want more DPS and less Def go Scrapper with claws/invul if you want more Def and less DPS go Tanker Invul/Claws...it really depends. Both are viable, scrapper might be faster if you play careful solo. I always just joined a mission with people cause the scaling in this game was just soo soo good.
hah nostalgia....