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I dont have enough experience with WHFB yet to know if my instincts are correct - it seems that VC have enough of a chance to give their units ASF that the main disadvantage of gw is negated. However, a 3+ save sounds great especially since I envision the army to be built around resiliency. Is it simply a matter of preference/need as to which option to take?

I personally just use hand weapon+shield, but that is mainly because I have 2 vampires in the unit (konrad and a fighty lord). This makes 20pts seem quite alot to boost just 4 attacks.

Using the helm of commandment the GWs are prety good.
In general though vampires win by not dying and the T4 3+sv guys are really really good at that.
I would go with the 3+save.

I have been thinking that small units of 10 or so with GWs make great flankers. Use them as detachments if you have spare specials slots, see how it does (be warned thoug they cant really take a charge well)

I say go GW. If your corpse carts get off their ASF power the s6 attacks are better shields than a 3+ save.

I played with a unit of each in the storm of chaos list and always found the shield unit to be the better option. The current rendition gives you many more outside influences on the unit (corpse cart, helm of command, and the crowd favorite banner of the barrows), and its hard to say anything bad about a greatweapon armed unit with all three of those effects working together (ASF, 2+ to hit, 2+ to wound, killing blow). I prefer to use the grave guard as a semi-autonomous block, while my vampires support skeletons and zombies that are doomed to crumbly re-death if left unsupervised. Because of this i only run a 16 strong shield unit and find it can bully around anything with 3's in the statline, and go toe to toe against anything else with minor magical support.

A popular option is to put a BSB w/regen banner in the block as well, giving them much better resiliancy than shields ever could. It's expensive, though.

Personally, I'd say GWs, even without the regen banner. VC have a lot of tarpit units, most of which are cheaper. What they need is a killy block, which the GWs give you.

i would arm them with both if you have the points just to be safe for any occasion. also they have killing blow, so you don't always need the gw. if you play a few games with them armed with both you'll see very quickly that they will tend to use one or the other more against the opponents you play and then you can drop the option you don't use accordingly

They can't have both. The entry specifies that you swap the shield for a GW.

ok then try both and see which goes best, that's usually the best method for figuring out if something fits your play style or not

I personally us the GW, of course I use it against Heavy Cavalry, monsters, chariots, etc. I would use them against other infantry if I took shields.

Honestly, and I love GW goodness, don't get me wrong, I've found more use out of wight blades and a 3+ save with the regen banner. thats an uber kill unit right there. The strength bonus is good, no doubt, but it's expensive to try and make that unit work if you're not using a corpse cart, and if played improperly, it becomes an expensive mistake.