2) Admit your weakness. Leads to low status, and then opposition from outsiders.
That sounds similar to a standard job interview question "What is your greatest weakness?". In that situation, perhaps a standard advice how to answer this question - emphasize how one intends to overcome that weakness and what weaknesses one has conquered in the past - is applicable here as well?
Edit. Although perhaps you meant that the very act of letting outsiders to define what is and what is not a weakness leads to low status.
It is suicidal to admit an actual serious weakness. For multiple reasons. One is that admitting a serious weakness will leave a very bad impressions that is hard to overcome. See the research that people will frequently pay more for a single intact set of objects then two sets of the same objects where one set is damaged.
The other problem is that admitting an actual error is going off the social script. It either paints you as clueless or a "weirdo." This is also a very serious problem.
Several weeks ago I wrote a heavily upvoted post called Don't Be Afraid of Asking Personally Important Questions on LessWrong. I thought it would only be due diligence if I tried to track users on LessWrong who have received advice on this site and it's backfired. In other words, to avoid bias in the record, we might notice what LessWrong as a community is bad at giving advice about. So, I'm seeking feedback. If you have anecdotes or data of how a plan or advice directly from LessWrong backfired, failed, or didn't lead to satisfaction, please share below.