I’d say option 3. Personally, I don’t care if random websites get my IP among a list of hundreds of others, and if someone wants to keep their IP hidden from strangers, they should be using a VPN before browsing the net anyways. It’d also be nice not to have to open another instance when I come to a post with a broken image that I want to see, but that’s not hugely important to me.
If it were an instance specifically for privacy enthusiasts, that’d be a different story, but this is a general-purpose instance, and option 3 seems to be what’s best for both general users and the server itself.
Linux machines don’t crash unexpectedly, because if they do, it’s your fault for configuring it wrong and you should have expected it.