Career Advice
Dreamshiner,
I sympathize with your position. The music stopped (as in the game of musical chairs) just as you had made a leap up the ladder.
Most un-employed pilots go back to what they were doing prior to the furlough. In fact, the strategy I and my peers used was to stay involved with the military reserve branch until the seniority list had 'enough' pilots below you to be furlough-proof then quit the reserves.
Politely, I suggest you are working it too hard with your in-depth analysis. Even if all you say is true in your original post, you need to get in the right seat of a twin, fly corporate, mail, freight, students, parachute-jumpers, students in your old T/R course, anything! Did you know pipelines and powerlines need to be flown over regularly by small airplanes to meet an inspection requirement.
Look at all options that pay you to fly. Be it third world, communist, sandy, seasonal (when is the hadj?), small country or large, small/large plane, single or twin. You need to get on a rung of the ladder. (don't scab or break the law, however)
You may have skipped steps earlier in your career. This is your oppurtunity to make them up. Not by your choosing, or because it is easy or fun, but it is what life has dropped at your feet.
Talk to pilots that endured previous recessions, fuel crisis, controller strikes, etc. When you are in the middle of it, it looks like there is no future at all. Then when it ends, there are rapid advancements when firms jump to make up lost time, market share, profits, etc.
It is like accumulating equities while the market is down. What you accumunlate will be of value at some point in the future.
Let me close with a question. Would you fly as a co-pilot on a twin otter flying tourists on sight-seeing trips over the Grand Canyon? PM answer is ok.
To put it lightly (or tritely) ....make lemonade out of lemons!
R