As I worked some time ago on the same model, I had to make a plan and answer all those questions for myslef. I checked all those build logs here and on other sites, gather information and decided on the way of recreating the planking! I reccomend you to check Szymon's build, it as good and informative as Alex's build. In the past I used both oils (for Roland DVIa) and decals (for Alb DVa) for recreating wood. I personally like the end result from the oils more than that of the decal.
The one advice I can give is to pick one of the ways of recreating wood and to stick to it, no matter if it is decals or oils!
Plank masking, you will have to mask and apply acrylics for sure, no matter which way you go afterwards. I used strips of tamiya tape to brush different acrylics over the planks and then I added on top some tiny spots with more colors, to get as much variation of the colour as possible. Then applied the oils and after the "main" oil colour (one and the same for all wood) I added tiny spots of reddish and brown oils and blended them along the fuselage, keeping them in one plank only.
I hope the explanation is good enough.
Here (somewhere at the middle of the page) I created a short tutorial for my clubmates on recreating wood. It is in Bulgarian language, but still the pictures are selfexplantory.
best regards,
Sasho