I am guessing that the point of your post is to gain some sort of insight into how to choose a residency, since the sample size of an "A is better than B" type response on this forum is going to be too small to yield a meaningful poll. At any rate, both programs are excellent and in my opinion there is no clear cut 'better' program when you get to a certain tier of solid training.
That said, my view is that residency is a relatively short time to learn difficult skills, and it is fundamentally a time for clinical training. Unless you have a clear drive to be writing papers/giving talks/etc when you're in practice(and be honest with yourself; we all say that we are interested in those things during interviews, but I have met few people who really walk the walk), then I think research takes a back seat somewhat(ok, maybe not back seat, but let's say passenger's seat). Again, you are choosing from two solid places, and I know former residents of both programs who have published well and often. Both places have also produced clinically and academically competent physicians, so in the end, it really falls onto your motivation.
Nonetheless, to have institutions as busy as Ben Taub and the Houston VA will probably keep you more busy clinically in Houston. So, Dr. Cranes, would you rather be spending that hour doing two phacos or working on that paired t-test? There's no right answer.
I would also take a careful look at where the residents have gone for fellowships--this is almost always glossed over during interviews. "Our residents go wherever they want for fellowship" is a common line. Take a look at the retina fellowship threads and you quickly realize that those words are often gross overstatements, if not outright lies. "We had one resident who went to superstar fellowship X a couple years ago and maybe you can go there too" is not a sufficient measure of success. You want to look for consistency across all subspecialty matches over a few years, if possible. The programs should give you this information or else you should email one of the residents/program coordinator to get it. The difficulty is that it is hard for a resident applicant to know where good fellowships are, since the reputation of a given institution and the quality of its fellowships do not often correlate. I do not know the match results for Michigan this year, but I do know Baylor's and they were impressive.
So while my bias is towards more clinically(and of course surgically) heavy programs, I would be proud to train at either of these institutions. Thankfully, my residency training is done, so I don't have to make that tough decision.
I hope that helps. Good luck.
