Yeah, the compact setup can help you have a much better climbing gear, and in reality 50x12 is not much more usable by mortals than 52x12, so you don't lose much up top. I live in Chicago, though, so anything I say about climbing and gearing should be taken with a grain of salt -- I only shift on account of wind.
I don't get terribly excited about headsets, like so many things nowadays it's pretty hard to buy a truly bad one. The last one I bought was a $20 Tange, I've been very happy with both the finish and the function. Ritchey are fine as well, heck, they probably come out of Tange's molds. Be aware that there are ISO and JIS 1" threaded headsets, Sheldon has all the info on this but basically you just need to measure your frame or your current headset.