In order to avoid the stretching issue seen in the green option, I removed the bevel from the curve before converting it to a mesh. Then I rigged this mesh object in the same way as the green option. Finally I added a skin modifier (and a subdivision surface modifier) after the armature modifier. This gave me the absolute best of all three worlds. No weird stretching like the red option, very easy to rig like the green option, and responds well to bending like the green and blue options.
