Need help with descision between ethercat or mesa

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Hallo all,
im planning and building my own cnc from ground up with zero experience. Im in the final stages of planing but like many times before Im rethinking some basic descisions. 
Issue right now is I was planning on using linuxcnc with a mesa 7i96s and send commands to the drivers via step/dir. I plan on using stepper-online a6-series servos for my cnc and am aware that this is a kind of suboptimal setup as its not a fully closed loop system. I have ran into an issue connectiong the servo drives to the mesa, all options are eighter expensive or create a mess in my electrical box. I am considering switching to ethercat as the pricedifference is negligible. Rather it would actually save me money since the wiring is much cheaper and I don't need the mesa anymore. Problem is I already have the mesa (unused) and don't know what the best option would be.
1. Go full ethercat and sell mesa. 
2. Deal with the wiring issue by throwing money at it.
I hope someone with experience with eighter system or both can give me some help deciding or maybe give me pointers that I may not have considered before.
Many thanks in advance.

A6 Ethercat servos are not step-dir compatible; pick one or the other.
Step-dir with Mesa will be easier to configure than Ethercat, but more wiring

What is complicated or expensive about connecting the step-dir drives to Mesa?  Buy a DB44 cable from Stepperonline and connect to Mesa - maybe I'm missing something?

Only headache I know is that the DB44 cable connector is HUGE, and sticks way out when plugged in to the drive.  If you have a tight enclosure you may not be able to shut the door on a standard 8" deep enclosure.

You can buy DB44 right-angle cables (no adapters I can find) to shorten the package a bit, or you can cut a hole in the enclosure door for the cables to stick out.  And 3D print a raised cover for the new hole...

The cables are kinda expensive(relative to others), the bulky part will be an issue too. Also played around with the thought of db44 breakout boards, most expensive because I need a cable and a board for 4 servos but it would reduce the wiring headache (~34 bouncing cables per servo)

Im trying to keep everything on a tight budget as the cnc kept growing and now Im at twice the planned budget. Im trying to future proof what I can and keep the system as adjustable as possible.