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Out of curiosity, what school do you go to? There may be actives or alums from that particular school that can help you with more specific advice.
I would recommend going to at least one rush event for each of the different sororities that is rushing in the fall, just to get a feel for what each house is like. Some schools will have open house parties where you can visit each of the sororities that are participating in informal rush -- these are very helpful. After that, I would recommend rushing as many as you feel comfortable with and can possibly see yourself joining, the more the better. Of course, if you can't see yourself in a certain house at all, you shouldn't go back, but if you're uncertain about whether or not you'd fit in, you should keep your options open -- maybe they just had an off night, and the next you go back you might love it.
It depends on the school as to whether or not most of the sororities will be participating in informal rush. Like you said, often sororities will meet quota (the number of girls they are allowed to take) during formal rush and then don't need to do formal rush. At some schools, only one or two sororities out of ten will participate in informal rush; at other schools it's over half or maybe even all. At my school, for example, 6 out of our 11 NPC sororities were participating in informal rush this year, with another participating only in COB (continuous open bidding) . . . which means that only 4 sororities were not taking girls in the spring. This number could be higher or much lower, depending on your school.
The biggest difference between formal and informal is that during informal rush you can receive multiple bids, whereas in formal you can only receive one. Informal rush usually doesn't (and in many cases, can't) make use of skits, costumes, excessive decorating, singing, cheers . . . Formal usually does. Informal rush parties are usually longer than formal ones. And then, of course, there is the fact that informal is generally just a lot more laid back than formal. It's a lot more like sitting back and having a real conversation with someone you want to get to know, rather than a job interview -- you usually have more margin for error in informal rush.
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