"Jeff R." wrote:
If you were interested in building a Zenith CH-701 (or similar), would
you go for the leading edge wing slats(as designed), or dispense with
them and use vortex generators instead?

I believe that the original Savannah Aircraft kit was first released with
leading slats, then they changed it to vortex generators because the latter
provided all the benefits of the former with no loss of STOL performance.
Here is an interesting web page describing tests done on Savannah:

http://www.stolspeed.com/slats-v-s-vgs

But the above is on a web site that appears to sell VGs. Here is what Chris
Heintz thinks of VGs vs slats for his 701:

http://www.zenithair.com/stolch801/d...vg-design.html