Eminent demise of storage innovation or not

Storage Engines are hard. Not impossible to create but reasonably complex that a high performance engine will require a small team more than an year to build and make production ready. I don't have a small team and I don't have a year. I asked Tommy, what are my options mate? His advice was, not to build storage engine yourself at outset. He proposed three options and I illustrate each with its merits.