As a member of the latest generation of miners, I thank you for the effort and ingenuity that you put into it!

Currently, PPLNS is paying out 102% all time, so I'm going to keep my hashing power where it is for now.  That said, there are times when my payout is less then average (and sometimes more) due to pool luck.  If you need a steady, level income PPS may be the best choice.

Good luck!

Edit: I believe, although I'm not 100%, that there is a fee for PPS payouts.  It's in your best interest to do the math on that before you make a decision.

I know I am going to get a lot of sarcastic answers on this one but please tell me exactly how do to the math and please give me a current example.

oh, forgot this is the new payout system on antpool today. "NEW FEATURES"

Don't mess with it. PPLNS is best in most cases. PPS might make sense if you don't mine continuously, but antpool is pretty stable in the luck department.

I have a quick question on PPLNS - I searched around and couldn't find the answer specific to AntPool, but in my case I effectively don't mine for 3 hours of each day.  So, with the spool up/down delay, does that still make sense, our should I dabble with PPS?  I suppose the simple answer is just to try and see what the payouts look like, but wondering if anyone has any additional insight.  Thanks!

Incorrect.

You said "rewards"
The rewards are not affected by the hash rate estimate.

Your total payout will only be affected by pool luck.
If the pool luck for the entire time of your payout is 100%, then your payout will be ~99.5% PPS (99.1% + avg transaction fees which is about 0.4%)
It doesn't matter if you don't mine for 18 hours a day, that just means the blatantly obvious that you'd expect to get 25% of mining 24 hours a day.

Pool block luck for the last 10 blocks is currently 109.64% and the last 5 blocks is 184.94%

Edit: to clear up what is probably your confusion looking at shifts and rewards in my pool:
If you mine for half a shift at 10THs your hash rate for the full shift will be 5THs, coz ... you mined for half the shift.
But the number of shares you submitted is the number that determines your reward.
Your shares are rewarded the same way as everyone else in the shift, if doesn't matter when in the shift you submit them, simply that they were submitted during the shift.
The "Avg Hs" in the shift is what hash rate would produce the value of shares you submitted if you mined the whole shift.
I record the shares you submit. Shares are what get rewarded.

If you mine for half a block reward with 10THs your "N Avg Hs" will of course be 5THs
i.e. you were paid the equivalent of mining for 5THs for the full Reward time, but paid for exactly what you did, 10THs for half the reward time.
If you mine for half a day at a PPS pool, you will be paid half of the expected daily reward ...

Those last two blocks chewed up about 8h 40m; we were due for a correction 

I appreciate your enthusiasm, but this is math, plain and simple.  We've had great luck for a bit, now we have bad luck for a bit.  At the end of the day, it literally all balances out.