I would try to add my 2 cents.
Option 2, if I don't have any point in the help sap (preferably) or KBA which explains the functional or technical constraints.
<Ranting mode=ON>I won't say anything new here, but all of your suffered the SAP learning process, most of the gaps between official documentation and the certificaction program, which IMHO must be sufficente to know how the system behaves, are resolved via some kind souls who blogs on SCN or dealing with SAP consultants/developers via marketplace, this information, usually gets lost at the end of the incident and of course not included in any official document, oh I was about to forget the SAP Press books, well, I guess we can include the authors to the kind souls group 
as I don't belive they got any richer. Nick you just praticipated in one of the Jerry's Wang blogs, claiming for that, so I guess you are pretty fired up 
to be hones I'm, I hate invest mots of my energies trying to figure out how a finished product works because "the instructions" are not completed or accurated, dealing with the delays of the suppor when I got stuck and the product is not behaving as It should, etc. Man, I hate this stuff...
</Ranting>
Of course, If there wasn't any ranting I would choose option 1 
Cheers!
Luis