Graduate courses or research experience for PhD admissions: Which is more important? I am currently at a crossroads, deciding between several MS program offers. I have the choice to do a research based masters, where I would take very few graduate courses but focus almost solely on research, and a more course based masters where I would primarily be taking graduate courses with a small thesis component. My goal is to leverage my MS experience to apply to US PhD programs. My field is applied physics.

Given these choices and my end goal, who would be more attractive to US PhD programs? A candidate with a few graduate courses under their belt but with 1-2 years of research experience (with a paper or two) or a candidate with no papers but who aced many graduate level courses?
I'd say the 1-2 years of research experience is the better option and here is why:

You are applying for a PhD position. Having research experience shows that you are already familiar with the challenges and you are not fresh. i.e. the department/lab/sponsor/etc. know that the learning curve is less for you. You may even bring or continue a project that you've already started. So, you may not need to start looking for a research subject either.

On the other hand, with all the MOOC, you can more or less learn or at least familiarize yourself with the some of the materials you need (I admit, this is not possible for every field or every course though).