Thanks for the feedback, guys. I'm relieved that everyone's answer wasn't "why would anyone do that in the first place?"

I'm glad to see that option 3 is the favorite so far. That's the way that I originally designed the joint after Jim advised that a dragon-and-cross might be appropriate for a tall-ish hip roof. It seemed intuitively correct that keeping the hip, dragon, and cross normal to each other was optimal for what the assembly was designed to do. But realizing that my intuition, where building big things out of wood is concerned, was about as reliable as my intuition concerning other things about which I know squat, I decided it would be a good idea to ask the guys who know (that would be y'all). I'm still interested in hearing as many opinions as there are out there, so keep them coming!

Here's another bit of info that might change some minds about whether to use a dragon beam at all: that 8x4 hip rafter is going to be supported at the top by a hefty ridge beam, which will reduce the thrust at the plate which the Dragon and Cross is designed to mitigate, right?