I'm pretty much in the same boat as you right now.
Just got my first corns, so not tried any substrates for 'em til I setup the tank on Sunday night.
I had similar thoughts as you with regard to aspen shavings as a substrate, so I compromised, heh. We had the aspen laying around anyway for the hamsters, so that was no biggy.
But, we were near the end of the bag anyway so I laid paper towels on the bottom of the whole tank, and put the wood shavings just covering half of that, about an inch or so deep.
So, I'm waiting to see, just like you