If you can, go and pick them up and decide for yourself. Different people have different ideas of what constitutes a good rod and action. Those ideas may not coincide with yours, even if everyone said buy x over y. As an example, I know plenty of people that like Greys barbel rods. Others think them very soft for their given ratings and far too through actioned. I have quite a few different barbel rods, including Greys, to compare. I can understand entirely why people think that. Some people just prefer a stiffer more tippy action.
I can't speak for those particular models you've given as options as I've not handled them. However, I have used and handled previous incarnations from both brands. Both were decent enough rods for the money without being outstanding. I doubt these two will be any different.
I definitely wouldn't select a rod based on whether it had a hook keeper or not, way down the priorities list. Besides, a butt ring makes a perfectly good hook keeper. I'd also not worry about the blurb failing to mention the rings being braid compatible. There's barely a rod ring made these days that isn't up to the demands of braid, even the really cheap stuff. Not like some of the Swiss cheese offerings of twenty to thirty years ago. Fox may not specifically say that their SLIK rings are braid friendly. However, they use variations of them on all their rods, and have done for a few years now. I've used Fox rods with their SLIK rings with braid and had no issues whatsoever.
