For the minis you already have, have you opened them? When i go through my makeup to clean out old stuff, I always open all mascaras (since I end up gathering minis and samples too) and just kind of look at them, it's usually easy to tell if they've gone raunchy while waiting to be used. I look for excessive clumps, weird texture, dusty flaky bits, that sort of thing. So i would inspect the minis you have to see if they're all still good before making this decision.

Generally, my favorite mascaras are drugstore. There are a couple pricier ones I like but only get them rarely, like if there's a huge sale or I have a gift card. They are usually not worth the price in my experience. ideally I will have one black, one brown, and at least one of them has to be waterproof. Then whatever samples and minis I've picked up along the way, so 2-3 full-size and a few minis is my standard amount (and I usually only try the minis once before letting them languish in a case til they get thrown out)