[bav]

Vegas can be a somewhat harsh sorta place to be completely on your own, particularly if things don't work out very well for you. It's a risk. The very fact that the OP is worrying about being too far from friends and family suggests he ain't completely comfy being on his own far from his old support structure. But...

It's hard to imagine anybody who would prefer to work in AC and live nearby instead of Vegas (yeah, yeah, there do exist such people, but they're strange). I think the OP basically has the pro's and con's about right. He has to juggle them himself to figure out what's important and what he's ready for. AC would be the jump into the shallow end. Vegas would be the dive into the deep end.