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Its a large, complex model but in the end it builds about like any other model.
My thoughts on your thoughts:
1) if you paint the parts on the sprues, you still have to remove the mold seams from every parts, plus the various sprue points, any mold pin marks etc. And you will have to remove the paint from the gluing areas. This is a really bad idea 99.9% of the time, espeically on models where the majority of the parts are the same base color.
2) Sub assemblies is a good starting point. Its not that big of a deal to glue a few major sub assemblies together after painting versus every single part. It doesn't take longer to build in sub assemblies either, really. You still glue part 1 to part 2 to part 3 etc. Actually too a lot of kits have convoluted assembly instructions and if you are savvy you can make things easier by building up more natural sub assemblies.
3) I try to build as much of a kit up as possible and paint it as a unit. With an airbrush its not hard at all to reach behind parts, into restricted areas. If the model is largely the same color its not an issue at all. Again you get no benefit in painting 100 parts for the trailer one at a time, all dessert sand, and then gluing them together, versus building the bulk of the trailer and painting it as a unit. You get a much neater build this way without glue all over everything and parts looking "stuck on", mis matched colors, etc.
4) build a monster too. The original Aurora Forgotten Prisoner is up for a limited run reissue...
