This is a very personal choice. You need to try each and decide what fits your hand (my hands are small for a male) and what you can shoot and carry comfortably. NONE of our answers really matter in comparison.
With that said, I'll offer some opinions about four of your choices that I own/shoot and an editorial comment.
- Walther P99 (almost the same as the S&W 99) in 40 handles well and has a decent trigger. Some mags are factory defective whereby the baseplate blows out dumping baseplate and sometimes everything else on the ground. S&W makes good on the problem and the S&W marked mags are NOT problematic (only the Walther marked ones used the inferior plastic). Recommended.
- H&K USP 40/45 in Compact (I own both) is still a big gun. The full-size USP is considerably bigger but otherwise probably similar handling. The trigger on this one is nasty, with few options for any good resolution. I carried it a lot, but am leaning towards my Walther P99 or S&W 1911.
- S&W 1911. Very nice gun. I only have ~4-500 rounds thru it so far and just replaced the trigger with a much shorter one. So the jury is still out on this one, but it looks like an excellent choice.
Generic issue to keep in mind on Glocks. The true safety on a Glock is the person who handles it. If EVERYONE in your household isn't real careful about following basic safety procedures, this can become a real dangerous gun to have around! The gun isn't the issue, but I know some folks that have great difficulty in following directions and thus would be "hazardous" around such a gun.
