Hi Mike
Option one is simpler... i too agree with Rick and Ronen.
Second one will have a processing overhead when local events are triggered. Each one will consume one RFC call and 1 second of processing time.
Keep your workflow simple ....minimal background steps...perform max processing in one background step as it too takes minimum 1 second for the RFC call to workflow local and the rest time depends on the code/logic of the step.
Regards,
Modak