I'd check the compression - generally I don't remove a cylinder head unless I need to. I only remove the sump if I have some reasonable suspicion of trouble, such as too many, or too large, metal bits in the drained sump oil, strange noises, or jerky movements of something. For compression testing Briggs advises you should rotate the engine backwards until you find compression, then spin it backwards and see how well it bounces off the compression. With any engine but a Briggs, I'd spin the engine with a geared-down electric drill and measure the compression pressure, but Briggs' Ezyspin feature makes that a bit pointless.
