For general purpose, the rough tapered handle looks more authentic.

The worst job of the entire affair is boring a pilot hole to set your tang.  Drilling into the end grain straight is fraught with error, but if you work up some body registry, like clamp the handle in your vise using some kind of visual square you can sight toward, and then use your body like leaning a leg against the bench leg and set your chin on your hand on top of the brace pad or somewhere.

It doesn't matter what you use, but what does matter is figuring out what works and is going to be repeatable.  You can use a square the first time to get comfortable but make a visual and body registry as you go and you won't need it next time. Practice at it and you'll get there fast.

Part of the beauty of burning in your tang is being able to compensate for a pilot hole that isn't totally perfect.  You can guide your handle as it sears itself in.  When doing a nice chisel this is always a good way to go.  Files or rasps don't matter so much.

Many handles don't have to have any kind of ferrule.  Look at many carving chisels.  Regular chisels might last forever, mallet work or no.  It's kind of a crap shoot. But the odds are decent and look how fast you can replace it!

In my life I've taken a coarse file and hand cut beds for ferrules and pressed them on when I wanted one (don't cut it too loose, leave em tight and press or pound them on).  For these you set your handle up vertically in the vise and eyeball over top so you can see how you are doing all the way around.  At least that's what I do.  Rough them in from the side watching the shoulder most, and then stand them up eyeballing over top to finish.

But really, making a new handle if it does split is so fast that the extra time it takes to put on a ferrule isn't really worth it most times.  This is what all my earliest handles looked like and some of them lasted for years.

I like a rectangular pattern better than a straight octagon myself.

If you line it up decent on the file or chisel you are mounting it to, it's a more sure and natural registry of where the edge is.  Might as well make them fat and hand filling.  This is easy when just whacking them out and you might as well since it's not like rosewood where you are trying to make something out of the barest minimum of wood that you can possibly manage to get to work (if you are like me). With firewood you always have extra.

Last job is cutting a bevel on top and bottom. You can make them small or fat. Use a coarse wood file or get tricky and carve them with your drawknife just for practice and show off. :-) It goes quick either way.