OpenSSL is free, but a secure certificate isn't. And Thawte is raising their prices now that they are Verisign company - is anyone surprised? That said, I think it's a manageble expense. We want to make things low-cost, but folks can't expect to do e-commerce for free.
Hamilton, can you describe how you would modify the service contract for Option 1? I don't think it's such a small change but I'd like to hear what you have in mind; I might be overlooking something.