Ideally, you want your chain to run straight, parallel to the centerline of the frame/wheels. In a perfect world, the gear on the rear wheel would be the same distance from the frame/wheel centerline as the chainring up front. This distance is called the chainline. Since both rear and front gears are normally actually stacks of gears, we average and designate each stacks's distance (chainline) from the centerline as that of the center of its gear stack.
Thus, for a 9 speed cassette, the distance of gear 5 is used; for a 3x crankset, the distance of the middle chainring is used. Your bike uses 700c wheels with 130mm rear dropout spacing and an 8-speed cassette, spec'd as a 47.5mm chainline. To keep your chain as straight as possible, Specialized spec'd a 47.5mm chainline crankset to match your rear wheel. Thus, you should try to preserve that chainline distance.
You're not just limited to the choices you mentioned. I would think most any kind of 48/38/28 170mm crankset using a square taper BB would work, as long as you chose the correct BB spindle length to produce a 47.5mm chainline.
For example, Shimano's FC-M361 48/38/28 170mm crankset is a substantial step up in quality. Specs can be found here: https://si.shimano.com/pdfs/si/SI-0094A-001-ENG.pdf
It takes a square taper BB with 123 mm spindle length for 50mm chainline (that's standard for mountain bike frames with 135mm rear dropout width). To reduce its chainline to 47.5mm, we need a BB spindle length that is 2.5mm shorter on each end, or 5mm shorter overall. Thus, we need a 123 - 5 or 118mm spindle length. Your bike uses a square taper BB with 68mm shell width, so a square taper BB with 68mm shell width and 118mm spindle length should work (e.g. BB-UN300 XL118 68 mm).
