You can get by with the stock hoses for plumbing, and then upgrade to PVC at a later date, if the whole planning ahead of time is overwhelming. It is not that big of an effort to remove the hoses and re-plumb with PVC. I would go so far as to say it is a nice project for a Saturday morning (unless you have to crawl around under a deck to plumb yours like I do). By using hoses first, you can play around with your pump/filter position. Do you like the drain facing a certain direction, does having it too near the pool make opening it difficult, does the bump handle stick out in a bad place, can I reach my electric receptacle from where I put it, etc.
But by all means, once you are indeed happy with the filter location, definitely hard plumb it. It makes a huge difference, you flow rates will be a lot better.. As was said, unions and valves are your friends. You can always plug your return and skimmer to work on things, but it is a LOT easier just to turn a valve. Also, if you decide to go with the SWCG (which you really really should in my opinion) you will want to look at placement of that in relation to the filter, the electric, and the plumbing.
I took a look at the SWGC that you referenced as part of your package, and I am not thrilled with it. Again, my opinion only. It may functionally work great for all I know. It may generate chlorine like a champ and last 20 years between needing to be replaced. I don't know about that. Here is what bugs me about it.
1) It HAS to be mounted vertically right off the the return - that is not necessarily a bad thing, unless you don't want it there. My in mounted in the same spot, but my power cord reaches and I am OK with it. I made a conscious decision to buy on that went there. There reason is, a cell generates hydrogen gas in addition to hypochlorous acid (chlorine). When the cell is located in a vertical position just below your return, even if water stops flowing while the cell is on, the hydrogen will flow upwards and out of your return. If you mount a cell horizontally in your plumbing, it requires a flow sensor for safety. That way if the water stops flowing it turns off before it turns into a mini-Hindenburg. Hayward offers two different cells, one with the flow sensor for horizontal applications, and one without, for vertical at the return only. It looks like the one you referenced does not have that option, and instead has to be mounted vertically right before the return. I took a closer look at it, and the PoolTux does seem to have a flow sensor, but it still states in the installation manual that it has to be mounted right off of the return. That is odd.
2) This is sort of related to part 1. Your SWCG has a timer that plugs into the electric outlet, then a "power box" that plugs into the timer, and then the cell plugs into the power box. There is ONE outlet on the timer, for the SWCG. The instructions actually show the filter plugged in elsewhere with a note that says "we recommend setting a timer for the filter to have the same cycle as the SWGC" or something to that effect. This means you need two timers, that you need to keep in sync. That is likely why they have a vertical only cell, it is possible (maybe even probable) to have the cell on with the pump off. The Hayward has a control box. The box plugs into the electric outlet and has a timer built into it. The box then has leads that power the cell, and an outlet on it where you plug in your pump. The timer on the box controls both the pump and the cell, so when one is on, the other is on too. I guess you could make a case for more flexibility in the separate set up, so you can run your pump without running your cell. But in my case, my cell is the driving factor. I need to run my system more for chlorine generation than I do for filtering.
3) Finally, I just don't like the control panel on it. Too simple. Just some led lights - one for power, one for low salt, one for low flow, and one for "error". It also just has a 5 position led for measuring output. The Hayward actually has a display, and will tell you voltages, salt concentration, and if necessary error codes that point you to the issue. It also has a much more granular Cl output adjustment.
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