In general I would say no, avoid http-equiv headers if you can modify the real http headers.
However, it depends why you are redirecting, using http-equiv headers gives you the ability to include javascript etc. Using the 'real' http headers gives proxies a better chance of understanding what you're doing, and theoretically they could read the http header and prepare the redirect before the browser asked for it. I have no idea if this actually happens.
I beleive that the w3 position is to avoid http-equiv headers.