Make that three steps back

Houston, we have a problem. After rushing to finish up my bubblegum scarf last night (no picture, it was gifted to my littlest's teacher today), I began knitting merrily away on this:

Yes, the pattern does lovely things for the color repeats. Yes, the texture is perfect for the berry-like hues (or is that tints? I always get art terms mixed up). Yes, I had the socks all planned out in my head and knew they would look fabulous. Except for one tiny thing: the yarn is pooling like crazy.

Noooooooo! Not the pooling! There is no point in having a textured pattern on top of coors that want to go in odd diagonals. Well, I suppose the point could be to do k3tog after k3tog and make my fingers ache to make a pattern that nobody will ever be able to see, but I'm not quite that insane (note, I said not quite). After much hair pulling and a few choice swear words (spoken softly, so as not to wake the boys or husband), this was all that was left:










Now, what to do? Should I go the Harlot route and open up my Socks Socks Socks book, even though I never really liked that pattern and my sock pal isn't a fan of lace? Should I try breaking up the pattern with yet another set of slipped stitches, like I did with the rainbow socks? Or should I resign myself and knit every blasted stitch, letting the colors do what they want while most likely knocking back multiple shots of whatever is handy?