I ran a setup very much like the @1 once. Did well like it started good ran good. Only advantage I could tell over oem ignition was the ease of starting. My problem was I kept leaving the switch on and kept killing the battery. When the brain went bad (msd) I went back to OEM. The gradual sounds cool but would it raise the cost tremendously.
Yes, #2 would be more expensive. #1 is straight forward and fairly simple. And since you mentioned it, an auto shut down
could be incorporated so that if folks leave the switch on for say 5 minutes and no ignition pulse is detected from the sensor
it will go into "sleep mode" where it wont drain the battery. As soon as the starter is engaged it "wakes up" again.
I am thinking #1 with a "capacitive discharge" ignition box sending about 20 KV to the plug using a Yamaha Ignition coil. Should be good to about 12,000 RPM with no spark scatter. Will have an LED on the box to set the timing with. So you turn the flywheel by hand until the LED lights and you are at 28 degrees BTDC or wherever you set the timing to. Would work great with the ARC Flywheel /adjustable Center. When starting, a delay timer is activated reducing the timing to 15 degrees.
How does that sound ?