Brian, I am gonna try to answer what you are asking, in all honesty you have been given sound advice here in the past and basically ignored it though, so don't be suprised if you get some shit thrown at you.
I think I could become the national spokesman for CardRunners, easily worth the $70 I spent to sign up and my intention was to sigh up for the month and watch the videos then quit, turns out I will be a member ($20 a month) for as long as the keep running the site.
You will know you are beating a level when you are constantly playing better than most people you sit with. This is easy to figure out, you should be making a modest profit each time you sit down, and when you lose it should be becasue someone else got lucky (though you will get out played sometimes, deal with it). Starting at .01/.02 is kinda pointless IMO. If you can't play better than them right now, use option 1 in your list.
After EVERY session be brutally honest with yourself and rate how you played, did you win or lose money and why? The sessions I have played the best poker, again IMO are ones that I picked up several small to medium size pots without showing down my hands. It doesn't take a lot of skill be dealt AA and get all the chips in pre-flop and hope they hold up (they never do by the way).
The most important thing is to have a goal, something I never did, unless you count "Make as much as I can" as a goal. It's important becasue long sessions that yeild only a little profit can be boring, that is a fact I have found out about winning cash poker.
I was playing two tables for a while yesterday and up over two buy-ins, on the last orbit I got KK beat by QJo which cost me over half the profit I made. While not entertaining, it was still a good session in my estimation. I made a small profit, played well, and got rivered by a guy, something I want him to do every time I play him.
Tough not to be results oriented since that's why we play, but be honest about your play not matter what. Playing PLO8 I was down a good bit then scooped two nice hands in a row, the last one I played horribly and got all the chips in after the turn way behind only to suck out a miracle 4
to make me the hi and lo. I ended that session down only a couple bucks, but still have to be honest and say I played horribly.
Learn what you are missing, play within your bankroll and, at least at low limits, make every good decision every time results be damned, and the results will follow.