I think most of the people reading this thread are pretty well informed about the options and their basic info, but this popped in my YouTube feed.
For anyone considering the maxxecu, if you didn't want to run an external crank trigger, the distributor from the Edelbrock proflo 4 kit uses the Ford TPI 7+1 trigger setup, which is supported by maxxecu.
Max ECU uses the molex CMC series connector, parts are readily available, so making a custom harness would be relatively easy.
You could even repurpose a pro flo 4 harness (which are application generic for all distributor applications) which also uses the CMC series connector (it would require swapping pins on the connector though)