SSH vs SSL/Telnet

tyr asks: "I am setting up a masquerade server for our church to access the Internet. I want to be able to remotely administer the server, but other people have concerns about security. I have decided to implement some type of encrypted login. I have heard rumors that SSH compresses the stream to cut down on the bloat caused by encryption. Is this really significant for a text only login? Anyway I just wanted to see discussion on the relative technical merits of each of the options like SSH 1.x, SSH 2.x, OpenSSH, SSL/telnet, and any others you would recommend."