[mike31154]

Some of the folks at RONA & Home Depot etc. know what they're talking about, retired tradespeople working for some extra cash. But as you can see, you need to be careful with any advice from large box stores. Any electrical contractor or specialty vendor would have provided you with more reliable info. If you want a good book on electrical code requirements for the homeowner, get the "Electrical Code Simplified, Residential" published by PS Knight. Soft cover book, red in colour for BC version, around $20 these days I think and available at.... RONA, Home Depot.... etc.

If you're going to go with larger gauge wire, might as well get 12 if you can. I can sort of see your point about having the GFCIs in the stand, but moving a 180? How often do you anticipate doing that? Receptacles are relatively easy to change, whether in the wall or in the stand. One other advantage of doing the wall, is you potentially save yourself one plug/recepacle interface. Each time you extend any circuit with an extension/plug and receptacle, you add resistance and potential power loss. Small perhaps, but it adds up, especially with undersize gauge wire and a controller and timer or two thrown in! The more continuous wire you have the better. If you do the wall receptacles, you could get by with heavy duty power bars alone, saving at least one plug/receptacle interface. With the GFCI or regular receptacles in the stand you'll have an extension cord from the wall powering the receptacles in the stand. Then you add another plug/receptacle interface for any power bars you use and finally you have yet another plug/receptacle interface from the power bar to the piece(s) of equipment you wish to power. You're going to end up with a lot of junctions there. By converting the wall receptacles and using power bars directly you could save yourself one of those.

Final thought, I don't recommend any plugs in the stand whatsoever. Try to keep anything with a plug and receptacle outside the stand. Less chance of humidity of the salty kind getting in there and causing you grief.