coilovers vs shocks and springs

what are the differances and pros and cons of each. I need new suspension but dont know whats best, anyone got any recomendations?

Shocks and springs have to stay at the fixed ride height you've chosen to buy, so can't be lowered and raised for different occasions like coilovers can.  

And how many owners raise and lower them once set, coil overs are only good if you want to have a ridiculously low ride height that makes the suspension [was going to say work] operate at angles never designed by vw.

Coilovers allow the 'ridiculous' ride height to be set, then after a couple weeks the owner can see sense and set it again to a more sensible level. If you bought the wrong set of springs, you can't do that. Also, they allow far more accurate corner weight setup to be done, which is not possible on springs except by swapping them etc.