UTHs/heat mats/heat tape are a good way to provide a warm surface for belly heat. They don't heat the air (much at all), and they don't provide a gradient (the snake is either on the heat or off the heat). Just belly heat "works" for lots of people's snakes, apparently, but it is far less than ideal.
With an RHP you should be able to put it on the warm side, and the PVC insulates well enough that the cool side stays in a reasonable zone. It may be that in a cool room it would be better to have the RHP slightly away from one end (so that the cool side catches a little more heat). And as mentioned, if the rrom is really cool, an additional underbelly heat source might be beneficial (I put my bottommost enclosures on a sheet of styro insulation to help keep the bottoms a little warmer, and I use coco chip substrate which retains some heat).
Yep, the Pro Products sales experience is weird. It is useful, though -- you tell him the snake species, enclosure size and material, and room ambient temp and he figures out what size RHP you need. I use some VE RHPs too and they've been fine, so if you want to keep things familiar that might be a good option for you.
The 'standard thermostat' has no safety features. This means that if the probe gets knocked out of place, the thermostat will keep pumping power to the heat source (Herpstats can be set to sound an alarm and shut off in this sort of 'can't reach set temp' situation).
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