NC have the attitude. They stand for freedom, whereas the Terran is more of a dictatorship/commy regime. The Vanu are pretty cool, advanced tech etc, but they use energy/laser type weapons. For me it has to be real bullets. Full metal jacket, baby. No functional differences, it's all about what you want to stand for ingame.
You can train into leadership and get squad beacons to deploy on a cooldown, so the whole squad can spawn together. You can spawn at any facility/outpost you own and you have a choice of which one to spawn at. As you usually own the region next to the one you are fighting for, you are never too far away from your buddies you are fighting with