I agree with lilsonicfan. Without touching on park tickets (as I feel that depends on how long you want to go for, and on where you are based) I personally think that Universal hotels in particular offer superb value compared to their Disney equivalents, especially without special offers. Offers like "free" dining can offset the difference somewhat it's true, but I still think dollar for dollar (or £ for £ in my case) Universal offers a better hotel experience compared to their Disney rivals... provided you compare apples to apples. I see far too many people on Tripadvisor comparing Cabana Bay to a savannah room at AKL, or RPR to the Grand Floridian. For some reason people seem to forget the fact that the direct rival for RPR (price wise) is more likely to be a moderate, and in that case IMO (and it is an opinion I grant you) RPR blows away any Disney moderate.
With regards to EP there's really no loss from it. Either you don't get it and stay in one of the still very nice and very cheap Universal hotels that don't offer it, in which case provided you go at appropriate times it won't really affect you to not get it, OR you pay for an EP hotel and you get absolutely superb access to rides throughout the parks. Visiting Universal in 2017 we honestly felt conflicted about EP - it was lovely to use but not essential in the way FP+ can be for WDW. So much so that in 2018 we booked sapphire falls without EP, but got bumped to RPR and had a blast. For us that solidified the fact that we love the EP benefits so we've booked there again, but I definitely wouldn't feel in anyway crippled if we didn't have it. Compare that to Disney where were it not for savvy planning and a fair sprinkle of luck some of our days would have been nowhere near as good as we were unable to access FP+ 60 days out.
But of course, it's all based on how long you want to go and touring styles. Everyone is different. We go for 14 days, stay entirely onsite at RPR but visit both WDW and Universal for example. Not many people do the same I think.