OAO,
I have many Gretsch drums. BD's in 18 through 24, and toms in 8 through 18, and a few snares. I have been working on this "shell bank" for a long time. I never set them all up at one time, I just like to pick and choose sizes for each gig. There are many examples of these drums in many different musical contexts on my youtube page,
https://www.youtube.com/user/nomsgmusic/featuredAll of my drums are 80's and before (RB, SSB, Drop G.) Some have been rewrapped by Precision Drums, and all are now Black Nitron. ALL of my drums needed to be re-edged, because none of them had quality edges, they ALL had factory flaws in the edges. Secondly, I have put RIMS mounts and Yamaha mounting hardware on every drum. Thirdly, I have removed all of the internal mufflers in all of the drums (except one snare.)
With all of that work having been done, these are the best drums that I have EVER played. In my opinion the sound of Gretsch is the combo of the Jasper made shells (that combo of wood, not just the manufacturer,) and the die cast zinc rims.
A student of mine was recently looking for a new Gretsch kit and I was trying to help him out, and I must say that the names and descriptions on the new Gretsch drums is REALLY confusing, I couldn't keep track of what was what. Good luck figuring it out. But whichever has THOSE shells , and THOSE rims are the ones that I would go with. But I would be prepared to have some "post manufacturing-delivery" tweeks done by a quality craftsman. Based on what I have seen recently, I am still not convinced that Gretsch's QC is completely "solved," but that's the deal when you "go Gretsch." So be prepared.
Those Natural Gretsch's that you have seen Vinnie using (with the 12x14 mounted floor tom, and the normal 16x16 with legs) are (I think) pre-USA Custom, they are the "original" Gretsch drums (when there was only one kind of professional Gretsch drums, and they had Jasper shells and die cast rims. From what I remember, I don't think they are deeper toms, but the bass drum might be deeper, although he could have purchased deeper toms along the way. I think those natural Gretsch's are also Vinnie's "original" Gretsch's, that were (I'd be willing to bet) tweaked majorly by Chris. However he also had an old set of jazz sized (I think Black Nitron's, maybe white I forget) waaay back (Berklee days) as well. I think he used them on the Joan Rivers show once with Herbie and Abe on a one-off trio appearance in the 80's.
Hope that helps, good luck with the purchase!
MSG