CFII Written and Afro's
I'd echo B2N2's thoughts on the CFII exam with respect to doing it at the same time as the IR if you are going down that route.
The only thing I found was the questions were ever so slightly harder than the IR. For example, in multiple choice quesitons you usually get one answer that is bull!!!!, one that is in the back of your mind from when you read the particular chapter but not relevant and two answers to scratch your head over, but one generally is right.
I found that in the CFII there were two answers that were correct, it was just that one of those was MORE correct than the other.
I'd also add I used a mix of the Gliem books and Martha Kings software (despite her afro, a hairdo that managed to conjure up a mixture of oddly arousing and fearful feelings, which I imagine I'll need years of therapy to erase from my brain)