I originally wanted the one with out the mouse, but I prefer with the mouse as I don't use my old mouse. What the tablet and pen does is it takes working area on the tablet and equates it to what's on your screen, so when you touch in the bottom right corner the cursor goes there. And when you want to do simple stuff that's not photopshop related it can be a bit of a pain to use the pen. And if you have both your current mouse and the pen on the tablet, they'll interfere with one another.
And I don't think Toxi meant she was quiting for good. I remember her saying that her school takes up a lot of her time or something. *shrug*