having built a few 0604 smd, I wouldn't consider 0402 smd... far too fiddly... I have some 0604 boards still to build, but increasingly poor eyesight keeps me away from them!!
I'd just buy a clone... they're only about 40-45 per channel, which is quite reasonable...
veils won't do inversion - the combination of vcas and manual attenuators/attenuverters is very complimentary...
as for an output module - in my 8 years or so of having a modular I've never had one - although the first mixer I bought had a headphone out built in... and I still have that and another mixer with headphone out... otherwise I've often just gone straight into an old yamaha mg10 mixer, without any issues... if I needed balanced outputs from the modular (and you only really need those for longer runs - especially if you are in the UK or EU and the power is decent) then I'd get an output module - otherwise as far as I'm concerned they're an unnecessary waste of both rack space and cash!
"some of the best base-level info to remember can be found in Jim's sigfile" @Lugia
Utility modules are the dull polish that makes the shiny modules actually shine!!!
sound sources < sound modifiers < modulation sources < utilities