Thanks for asking this question, its a good one with little answers out there. Having been a phantom equity partner in a start-up myself, I would say phantom equity didn't give me the push to be all in as much as real equity would have. I never felt like a true partner. Reason being, the owner wasn't fully committing to me, so how could I with him. If you have the right potential partner who's quality and is going to come into your start up with all their time and heart, equity will pay off. A SARs based system works great for entry level employees that join early. Helps to justify the risk on their end. Good luck.

You might be interested in trying out trello.com. We use the higher end paid version and have been really happy with it. It's very visual and customizable. I've seen it in use at an agency of 40+ employees as well as smaller 5-6 person production houses and it seams to do really well.