Global Options In Mve

Feeling a little deft here....

I want to be able to create a global option available to all vendors and all products. I.e. Framing: [simple = $10], [fancy = $20], [elegant = $50].

I want to be able to apply this to all products from the 'Link an existing option" search box (there used to be a "global options" button to do this).

So I went (as admin, not vendor) to Products/Options. I create an option as above for Vendor = none (which I assumed would make it global).

I then went to the Options tab in a vendor product. I searched for "Framing" and it shows as a search result. Saving the product then 'links' this product. But the problem is that it's a 'link' and not a 'copy'. So a Vendor can't modify the variants specific to their product.

The documentation stinks and doesn't even refer to the "Link an existing option" search box.

The goal is to apply a copy of that global option to a product so a Vendor can add/delete/modify variants for a specific product without affecting the global option (option template).. In older version (pre-variations), options could be "linked" or "copied" to a product from a global option. The global option essentially became a template. How do I get that prior functionality in today's system?

What am I missing?

CS-Cart says that you should use variations now. Copied product options were removed from the core

Don't want separate product_id's for simple options. This isn't Tee Shirts. It's not an inventoried item.

Variations also don't solve the problem of being able to provide a template that the data is editable by the vendor but the template is managed by the site admin. And (as I understand it) variations use Features, not Options.

Guess I'll have to write an addon to get the prior 'option template' type functionality back.

This removing valid features because you want to force people to conduct business in some one-size fits all approach is really poor software/business plan.