Sean,
Thanks for the vote of confidence! (And please, call me Brandon.)
My suggestion is to go for BOTH of the first options. Send the book to the above mentioned places (one at a time, unless you're brave and want to risk the wrath of publishers who don't like simultaneous submissions.) My experience is that Daw gets back fastest, Baen second, and Tor third. Of course, you'll want to pick the publisher who would work best. Send a space opera to Baen first, but an epic fantasy to Tor, a stand alone fantasy to Daw, that kind of thing.
Last I checked, you could still slip unsolicited subs in at Ace, if you knew what you were doing, but that could have changed.
Also, send to agents. I'd recommend not just queries (most agents ignore those, in my experience) but trying to look for agents who will accept sample chapters and outlines. That improves your chances. The exception is Joshua Bilmes, who is my agent. (And whom I highly recommend.) He reads and responds truthfully to every query he gets.
The third option is to try and meet editors and agents, getting a feel for which ones specifically would like your writing style. This is easiest done at a place like Worldcon or World Fantasy. Reading their blogs also works, as does watching which books they specifically work on and publish. (I.E. Patrick Neilsen Hayden likes different work from Moshe Feder, who likes different work from Jim Frankel--but all are Tor editors. If you send blind to Tor, you never know who will read the ms.)
And, I guarantee that MISTBORN is worth the money and the space in hardback! But, I can understand financial limitations. Goodness knows, we've all had them at times!
Note--I don't know if I spelled any of those editors names right, and I'm too lazy to look! But they're close, I think. Patrick did John Scalzi in recent books, Jim found Terry Goodkind, and Moshe publishes me. Just in case you were wondering at some of their stylistic preferences.