I fully endorse your first option, how I used to work. In my latest team, all PRs go through an overworked "code owner" so end up backing up and getting out of

I fully endorse your first option, how I used to work. In my latest team, all PRs go through an overworked "code owner" so end up backing up and getting out of date. Breakages in PRs from merging latest master get sent back to me to "fix", ie extra work only required because current master is so behind the curve.