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I'm looking to shrink my stock of Warmachine and am thinking about stepping into Flames of War (diversifying one's portfolio is good I hear).

Problem is, I'm completely lost on where to begin. Core Rules 2.0 I understand. Is the mini rule book equal to the hardbound one?

Early, Mid, Late....what is conisdered standard? Most of what I have seen people play is Late, but is that just a function of the local meta and the fact that Tigers are cooler than Panzer I and Panzer II?

Standard battle size?

Festung seems to have the bulk of late war armies in it, but is there some other books I should be looking at?

I'm leaning towards late war germans, just due to the fact that I have always loved the Panther and Panzer IV tanks. HOwever, I know this gets a lot of play locally, so I am also considering some style of British force as well as it seems to be the most underplayed of the major armies in the area.

Rules wise, yes.

Battlefront has been focusing on LW so it's the most popular right now. Most MW models can be used in LW without a problem, though. Personally I wish they would do something with EW but I'm biased since I play Italians.

1500 pts.

Fortress Europe, which is an update to Festung. The main difference is the inclusion of several new units, rules consolidation and reduction in pt costs. Fortress still contains all of the core lists from Festung, but nothing but the core (Tank, Infantry, Motorized etc). If I was starting out I would go with Fortress, unless I wanted one of the variant lists like British commandos or Russian Guard, since it's Company organization layout is easier to understand.

They also just finished releasing a series of rulebooks for Operation Overlord and currently are in the middle of Operation Bagration. If you're interested in historical scenarios or more unique lists you should take a look at those.