Cast your vote now, a.k.a. HELP!!!

So, I've been ignoring the finishing, which I told you about before, that I have to do for this sweater from Interweave Knits (by Leslie Scanlon, IK Fall 2005). Why? Because I wasn't sure that I liked the look of the outside seams after seaming the front and back pieces together, and the sleeve seams, even though they were what had drawn me to this very simple sweater in the first place. However, last night I took the plunge and sewed one of the sleeves to the body. There were issues, though.

1) The circumference of the sleeve armhole was quite a bit greater than the circumference of the armhole on the body piece. I managed to ease the piece in to fit, but got a slight gather and pouch, which you can see below.
2) Is it just me, or does the armhole seam look messy and awful? (And this is why I have posted the original sweater photo from the IK website, rather than linking you to it. Normally, I wouldn't do this, but you need a real good look at the original. I hope that, by providing a link to IK, and citing the designer, the copyright police will forgive me.)

3) And, having scrutinized the original photo very careful, I realise that my neckline rolls, whereas the original sweater's neckline lies beautifully flat. Argh!! I'm not sure why it's doing that; I knit the neckline stitches with needles one size smaller (as called for in the pattern) to prevent rolling. Maybe I need to try again, with an even smaller needle size?

So, the question is, what do you think I should do? I have a couple of options, some more painful than others.

a) The visible seams were a bad idea. Save the sweater by ripping out all the seams - sleeves and body - and re-seaming them on the inside, making this an extremely plain and simple sweater. Not that there's anything wrong with that......but, apart from the armhole seam, I think the rest of it looks all right.

b) It wouldn't look too weird if all the sweater seams, except for the armhole seams, were on the outside. I should just undo the sleeve I just attached, and attach both sleeves to the body with seams on the inside.

c) The visible seams really are kind of nice. I should undo the sleeve I just attached, and try to do it more neatly this time. (Although I don't know if this is possible, since the sleeve shaping creates uneven edges at the top of the sleeve, hence the ripply look the sleeve seam allowance has compared to the body seam allowance.)

d) The rolled neckline doesn't look too bad. Try to block it flat but, if that doesn't work, don't worry about it.

e) The beautiful, flat neckline of the original should be the goal. Undo the neckline stitches and try again in an even smaller needle to try and tame the curling.

And, in other news, the gauge swatch I did with the Kool Wool for the jacket I'm knitting lied. I had completed about 60% of the back piece when I measured to verify my gauge, and found that it was off by a whole stitch. That adds a lot to the circumference, so I ripped it all out (frogging, in knit-speak, since you "rip it, rip it") and tried again with a smaller needle size. For the first couple of rows, it seemed the gauge was right. Then, when I'd knit around 7 inches, I checked again, and again found that my gauge had changed. Well, shoot. I'd been using my Denise Interchangeable needles, but I couldn't go down to the next size because Moocow has them; she's working on a bag! Things just aren't going my way at the moment.

So, anyway, I would really, really appreciate your input regarding the sweater I am trying to finish, so comment away!