I painted myself in a corner. How to layout?
Your suggestions are spot on. 


Solder your components first, but think about what you could use as a wire, e.g. a resistor can be used as a jumper. ICs are the main thing to put in first, as they are set and will have a lot of dense connections. Try and work in a matrix, with all wires/components running along rows and columns.
Rails are best - you'll have lots of things going up to V+ and down to ground so fit around that.
Leave yourself space in the prototyping phase. You can scale down later if need be, but once you've started small it's hard make it larger. A bit of planning will go a long way :)


You could also try some simple stripboard layout software. A number of them are paid (and surprisingly expensive), but PEBBLE is free and is a good starting point at least.