To make a long story short, I've been offered the good fortune of having LL furnish the wood and labor for a floor installation in my home, w/o any limitation on wood selection and/or price /sq ft. The 'space' is about 1500 sq ft, currently with carpet over concrete slab in a single story home in San Antonio, Tx.

Given the aforementioned, what brand/type of wood should I go with? And secondly, should I stick w/ my thoughts of an engineered glue down or gamble w/ a solid glue down? Pros and cons? Would I be dumb to just turn down the offer and go w/ a local company or do you think that I can get a really good floor from LL?

Thanks so much for any help or advice. I've been racking my head over this.

Are you saying you are getting this free?? Awesome deal Don't turn that one down.
There are steps to putting down hardwood over concrete so you don't have to limit yourself.
LL will give you samples.

Best install over concrete ( if height is not an issue) is a floating ply subfloor with trowel on vapor retarder and six mil under it, then nail solid to it. Second best is to nail engineered to it. Third is to glue down. Last is a floater and non-mentionable is an engineered click floater. Thats just my opinion. Pick which ever one costs the most and has the best warranty, not that the warranty means anything cept maybe a slightly better product.

and often it's a very big maybe!

Completely agree.