I prefer the more resilient versions for several reasons. Though I haven't been able to join as many Dailies this month as I was in May, June, and July, I had a lot of success then with lists that walked the line between Paradoxical control and Cantrip Gush-Delve.

The main reasons I've preferred the Paradox lists with a Mentor win-con that are not "Opal Soup" are:

Lower frequency of hideous mulligans. Less games auto-lost due to inactive Mox Opal(s). Better equipped to win despite Stony Silence/Null Rod. Monastery Mentor is the best answer to Monastery Mentor Able to change roles, particularly post sideboard. For instance, when an opponent can be expected to overboard v. Paradox with Null Rods and artifact hate, I board out Mana Vault, sometimes EE, and 1 or 2 Outcomes, morphing into more of a straight up Mentor deck. Paradoxical Mirrors. The control/resilient versions have been substantially more favorable in matches v. the combo lists.

@bleedth3sky The games I generally lose with aggro shops, car or other wise to mentor, usually involve them having enough removal + snapcastering, that I basically just end up with 0 threats on the board. Cutting threats for more car/equipment feels risky to me because of that. However, I do think that plating can be a powerful card. I believe that @cutlex or @brassman might be able to speak to that further, as I think they both have actually played plating semi-recently in "tiny robots".

@vintage_rage
By Force has been great for me. I don't know yet whether I prefer 2 or 3 copies in the sideboard, but I'm very happy with the card ... but my approach to Shops seems to be a little different than some.

I wouldn't want to run By Force unless I was totally sure I had:

a rock-solid manabase enough cheap removal to survive long enough to develop my manabase

Postboard I'm running 19 lands (+5 artifacts) and 7 one-drop removal spells, which has been good for me. Typically I'm able to play a one-for-one By Force early, and get bigger value out of it in the late game.

I think if I were not already in a position to do that, I would run more lands or more 1-drop removal instead of By Force.