Well, for a manual solution, I think workflow 1 is it. Although to make moving around the model easier, select faces you want to work with and hide the rest. This will prevent some block of views.

[Edit] disregard this note, misread the original post: "Flaw in workflow 3, the subdivid would split each face into quadrants (assuming a level of 1), this would result in you having to delete extra edges."

Last suggestion would be to build the edge loops in from the begining, extruding edges is great for this.

Sorry, I know that wasn't the answer you were looking for.