When did you message him? He mentioned to me just today that he's been having email problems, so you may have to be patient while he works that out. What I can tell you is that Dan absolutely went the extra mile for me, he was always quick to reply to any questions I had and we got a great price on a quality animal. Communication was great, he almost always responded within a couple hours. I would 100% recommend buying from him - especially his pastel calico combos - he produces some of the best I've seen.
Well, buying a single gene animal we were definitely going female. Considering a Pastel Calico... well it really depends on your priorities. If you want to really focus on the calico gene, get a male so you can pair him with all sorts of different things. I'm falling more and more in love with calico combos myself -it's one of my favorite non-recessives, but my foremost priority is clown which I already have a pretty great male for, so naturally we started with a female. It's all relative to your own breeding plans.
Hope this helps a bit.