FWIW I have both dry preserved mounts and tanned mounts next to each other. Could not decide which was the better route before I went to school. Now some 15 years later I know a few things. Detail wise you can make both mounts look really good. But the aging process, all the dry preserved mounts look worse than the tanned ones do. Of course if you have one or the other only you'll never know.

As mentioned look at her work. Some folks do super work both ways. Some do horrible work both ways. As mentioned if it makes you happy thats what really counts.

FWIW in theory one could almost mount a deer in 3 weeks and have done the tanning yourself with a good agent. But where would that leave the dry time at? Nill. I like to let mounts dry at least a month before trying to do finish work on them. That way I feel that what limited shrinkage there is, will be finished by that time.

Jeff