question about mixers,please help!

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Greets,
early next week I need to buy a mixer and since this is my first one I need your opinions. I`m considering buying Mackie 1202 Vlz Pro with 4 stereo and 4 mono channels [1402 Vlz Pro with 4 stereo and 6 mono is a lttle bit to expensive at the moment for me and beside the number of channels and that it has volume sliders instead of knobs like 1202 there`s not much difference].
Since I saw that all the huge expensive mixers have only mono channels and that in the professional studios each synth is connected in 2 mono I was wondering will it make much of a difference if I have some of my or all of my synths connected in stereo channels while mixing? I have at the moment 3 hardware synths and a PC with 2in/2out soundcard and I`m not planning to have more that 4-5 hardware synths at most[!] in the future ..

I really need your help about this as this should be a one time purchase! So is 1402 with 2 more mono channels and volume sliders worth the extra money?