I have recently started mining coins (only 2 days in now) and I also had to think about this.

I ended up going with the above route where I joined an auto-switching pool that pays out in BTC's. I must say I am very impressed with not only how easy it was to setup but also how profitable it has been in these early stages. Don't get me wrong, still super early days for me but I am very humbled by all the hard work people are putting into making their pools solid as well as the coin creators for all their hard work.

So yes I would say pool is that way forward. From my point of view if you want maximum profit you are going to want to get all over the coin market making sure you keep up to date with trends and what the best thing is to mine. If you want minimal effort but still profit got for an auto-switching pool, set your mining rig to and forget about it for a while ;o)

All the best,

Seph.