I think option 2 is your best bet for now, Steve.
Most of the time, folks staff for a decade or so, the go freelance for a while then, utilizing the knowledge gained while staffing and the contacts aquired by freelance, open their own shop with clientele waiting. Open without that and it’s just unemployment with an overhead. In reading yourpost, it seemed like you skipped the staffing part. This is what will lead ya to proper freelancing.
I mentioned a decade earlier. Don’t look at it as a sentence. You’ve already done some time. You’ll know when the time is to evolve.
