A. As far as safety is concerned, I would defer to the people and organizations that specialize in those determinations. I would guess that some organization like Consumer Reports would have some information and recommendation on this subject. I would only caution that if you choose an electric heater with good old glowing heating element wires that you use extreme caution with things placed near them. A personal friend lost someone close when a blanket slipped from their bed during the night and fell against an old baseboard heater.

Here are the pluses and minuses as I see them for your space. I happen to know that this is a large space and I would consider how the two fan-forced heaters would heat it. I would think that having them on opposite walls and at opposite ends of the space would create a circular air flow that might work well. Having baseboard heaters would expand the area that contains the heat sources, but as you point out it would take up wall space. If you went this route, I would definitely look at hydronic style heaters to help avoid safety hazards. I’m not sure that the exposed element type of heater even exists anymore, hopefully not.

You might want to consider adding one or two ceiling fans to move the warm air down from a high or vaulted ceiling. This would help to even out the heat and you would get better overall heating. The bottom line is that I would probably go with the recessed fan-forced wall heaters. They put out a lot more heat from a much smaller footprint. I only have experience with these in bathrooms, but they are capable of heating a bathroom very quickly.