Both ideas are clever, but are they smart? If you had to put 40 holes through a ring, how long would it take to draw the path linking them together?
Is there a good way of solving this as a general class of problem rather than a specific instance with a small number of symmetrical holes?
If they are good general solutions, we could generate a list of 25 random numbers between 0 and 360 and the time/effort taken to produce the finished model should not be affected.