(4) Abuse the baking features (required by most smart materials), height maps (you'll want to collect some good alphas), and texture generators (specifically pos/linear gradients and tile generators).

I recommend substance community assets (100% free) and artstation (mixed) for good sources of .sbars. Alphas are harder to find, but artstation can get you started. Later down the line, don't be afraid to open stuff in substance designer and make simple edits (helpful for Cartesian > Polar UVs).