Well I think your making a common 0L mistake that I myself made and your focusing way to much on rankings. The rankings matter for top schools, but schools of the caliber considering change drastically year by year. The school I went was 70th when I started it has been in the 100's and last year was in an 11 way tie for 84th place. It really doesn't matter when it ends up. I graduated five years ago and nobody cares if my school is 70th or in the low 100's that is where it will always be. It will never be Harvard, Yale, or anything like that it was a fine school, but pretty much the same as all the other ABA schools around the country.
Your focusing on these rankings to like #1 professor accessibility these are pretty much bogus rankings. Remember U.S. News and the Princeton review are just magazine offering an opinion they don't mean anything. As an example to make you and other law students who may read this look outside the law school box realize U.S. News ranks everything. Here is a list of top 10 cities to live.
http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/real-estate/articles/2009/06/08/best-places-to-live-2009 . New Mexico, Alabama, etc nothing against these places, but I don't think you would move to these cities because U.S. News said Albuquerque was great. However, for some reason law students including myself when I was a 0L think it is different when it comes to law school, but it really isn't. Use your common sense of course there are some schools that are truly impressive, but you know what those schools are. Pepperdine, McGeorge, or USF are all fine schools, but they aren't impressive. They will get the job done and you can have a successful legal career or you might not it is going to depend a lot on you.
Then another mistake you may be making I don't know, but it is something I certainly did is focusing on these specialty rankings. The school I went to had a highly ranked IP program and so I said I had an interest in IP. Turns out I absolutely hated it, and never used it. Maybe you truly have an interest in dispute resolution that is a personal thing that only you know, but many 0L's will see something like that and decide I have an interest in it, and the reality is most law students and most lawyers don't really know what they are interested in specifically. I ended up doing a lot of trial stuff and liking it, but I would never have seen myself doing it when I started law school.
It does sound like you really enjoyed the morale, culture, campus that Pepperdine offers and that is something to consider. Law school particularly first year should be counted in dog years. Years 2 and 3 pretty much fly by, but 1L you can't explain until you do it, but it seems like a very very long time and you want to be somewhere your comfortable. If it happens to be Pepperdine that is great if it happens to be UOP that's fine to you will know better than anyone else where you will be comfortable. As I said remember this your decision don't let a magazine or anonymous internet poster make it for you. Listen to your gut feeling, because that usually knows what is best for you and it is going to be three years of your life and 100,000 of your money that goes into this make it the best experience for you possible.
Hopefully your visit tomorrow will shed some light on your decision if you hate the school, professors, etc then location and cost might not be the most important factors. You can move it will be an obstacle from L.A to Sac or maybe you will love L.A, but just really pay attention to how you feel about the particular school I think that is really more important than anything. If you love a place during a visit it will probably be a good three years if you can't stand if for a day it will be a rough 3 years. Again good luck to you.