Answers.
One they are very different games. They are both smaller scale battles but for the most part all the tank units and infantry and artillery work the same in Memoir while you can have six different units and no two would have the same ability in minis. Any similarities is strictly on the surface.
Memoir '44 is better as you get everything you need to play a lot of scenarios just buying the main game. You need a lot more units to get the same variety from minis as from Memoir and it WILL cost more you don’t have to chase rares and the guy who spent the most doesn’t have an advantage over the cash strapped. They have never ‘rewritten’ the rulebook or made earlier sets obsolete as they add expansions and you don’t need several pages of FAQ sheets to keep track of unit interactions.
Minis is better as you can have much more detailed battles and more mix of units and not just recreate battles but very small parts of battles and some of the pieces are pretty decent models and those Memoir pieces are pretty generic. The variety of units touches on a lot more aspects of combat.
Each has their advantages and disadvantages. :-)
Oh and one last thing – Go Buckeyes.
