First I'll throw a warning out there from personal experience, tools are just that, they provide you with info to use, but in monitoring have the right team to analyze what's being generated means more that any tool you can support. Point in fact, Meltwater, we spend tons on it but many are fooled by the mostly empty promises, we have everything they sell and I'm much rather go without it investing in actual people and keeping them up to date. Go with Radian if you're looking for something spiffy.
Hootsuite is a personal preference and in my opinion the best when it comes to large team collaboration.
Many don't see the value in tools like SocialBro, but for quick list management, backup and copying a list from a competitor nothing can beat it.
Hashtracking.com do some great work, have them setup a beta account while they're not live yet.
To do basic comparative monitoring on accounts we use SocialBakers.
Personally I don't believe in the merits of automated sentiment analysis, but it could be because I'm in South Africa and language barriers make it difficult, but watch tools like Meltwater.
Finally use this handy free # tracker in google docs http://j8k.es/HcY