I own both radios and the RT software. Programming via the SD cards is definitely the way to go. All you need is a card reader (probably built into the computer). I think the cost of the RT software is worth it. I've tried the free Yaesu software and find that it is not as good. I recently bought an FT-70D and tried to use the freeware. It cannot program memory banks. You enter all the information and assign memories to banks, write to the radio and get the error message "NO BNKS". Bought the RT systems software (for FT-70 you need their cable) and simply re-wrote the file to the radio and the banks work fine. I already had a cable for programming a VX-6R which works well on the FT-70D as well.
I had the same problem with bank programming with CHIRP too.
The programming cable situation is a little complex. The FT2 and the FT70 come with USB cables which can be used to program the radios AND update firmware using Yaesu software. The RT cables use the speaker mic connector to program only. RT does not do firmware updates. Firmware updates are a bit tricky. Yaesu has reasonable, but not simple, software for doing this. Fortunately a new radio should be updated and the updates are not that frequent. Just updated two older FTM-3200's. Not fun, but I eventually got the new firmware installed.