See, I think that its really unfair to offer employees these options with the high cash one being the "wrong" choice. people have expenses and there's nothing wrong with choosing less risk in favor of cash up front. It doesn't mean that you "don't believe" in the mission or any bullshit like that.

One motivation behind this model is exactly people in situations like yours. Your liquidity needs should be cyclical. The IE model fully supports taking varying amounts of cash each month and getting something approaching a fair-valued amount of equity each time.