I haven't seen a computer that couldn't run LFS in almost a decade. Since 2006 when I was taking Cisco in High School, I was able to not only play it, but run it on max settings on the school's Dell XPS computers.
If you ask me i'm for the first option. Just look at Half Life 2 and Unreal Touranament 2004. They have had so much sucess because they are open to modding. Sure they have some crappy mods here and there but eventually you will be able to tell them apart from the good ones. I would love to see Talladega or even a trak that has a loop in it. Hey there's an idea! A hotwheels type track!
Play the Nascar Racing Season 2003. It is the most realistic nascar game ever created. Well at least AI and Physics wise. The graphics are somewhat dated.