Recover Instance after Log File disk error
Disaster Recovery Plan depends on
1.Acceptable Downtime
2.Acceptable Dataloss
Any Disaster recovery  plan you devise will revolve around the above two points only

Either option meant work for the App guys, because all the applications and associated services would need to re pointed
Theoretically, this meant no work for the App team but had a serious time overhead for me (the only DBA).

your Disaster Recovery option doesn't depend on the amount of work involved and who has what share in that..
You will have to sit together with Business Guys and get Clarity on what is the downtime and dataloss they can afford .Based on this you have to devise plans(using High availability options) and test it(Mock Drills) from time to time.