a perhaps non-obvious option is to CNAME (or NS) the `_acme_challenge` record from your main zone to another zone you can control better and can't affect production traffic the same way the main zone could. `acme-dns` is a neat little tool for exactly this, that has an https api for your ACME client to request a cert from, and a dns server to respond to dns-01 challenges from your provider.
Absolutely, this works well. Where it's approved :)
Yep, being able to “redirect” the “challenge record” is very handy in some cases. Did a writeup here with some examples of how it can be arranged: https://hsm.tunnel53.net/article/dns-for-acme-challenges/
Yeah, I have all my _acme_challenge as their own zone so that BIND can auto increment the serial number without going through the pain of locking/unlocking the entire domain and hoping you don't end up with stale data that stops syncing.
That said, I like that the current system proves that you have control of the domain at the time of renewal, and I'm not sure how setting a one-off token would achieve the same.