Hi Toofuzzy, I guess that at my age I don't want to wait around for LEAPS and such, but you are correct, the longer the term and the closer the strike price is to the current price the more money you get.
I did some calculations a while back and found, for the positions I was testing, the shorter term options got slightly higher returns per year. Not much, but every penny counts.
The other reason I'm using shorter term options is that I suspect we are getting quite close to a significant down market and I don't want to be selling PUTs in a down market. That's the time for a covered CALL.
