What type of panoramas are you going to do? (ie. single-row or multi-row?) And what’s your budget?
Are you going to use the tripod solely for panoramas, or are you going to use it for other types of photography as well? If you’re going to use it for non-pano work, will you be OK swapping heads every time you want to switch between them?
The panos I do are single-row, so I use a ball-head with arca-swiss style release and swivel base. Along with a second arca-swiss style QR base and a couple of different-length plates it’s very easy to set up, and very reasonably priced (I think the whole rig cost me about $60.) If this fits the bill, you might want to see if you can get one locally to you so that you can check the smoothness of the movement.
If you’re going to do multi-row shots, I’d recommend a gimbal head with arca-swiss release. In general they’re cheaper and take less time to set up than a nodal-ninja, but might be cumbersome to lug around. I played with one from Milano about a year ago and was quite impressed with it.
If money is no object and you’re going to dedicate a tripod and do multi-row panos, you can always go with a Gigapan. 