My goal (and the primary reason for coming to prototype) was to qualify EOOW but my wife and I are expecting our second child in a couple of months and it would be nice to be home more to help out around the house.
My personal strategy has always been to take on any additional, extra, advanced challenges, which always reflected highly on Fitreps and later on resumes. I believe the whole picture you want to paint is "give me a task and I'll do it 110%. Nothing is too hard". EOOW is one of those task demonstrations, as you seem to know from your own goal-setting. Regardless, you likely still need to answer the question, "What did you do during your Prototype tour?"
If you haven't done any college work yet, I'd vote for taking the dayshift job and working on that for my "personal growth" opportunity. I'd even say that would be more important than qualifying EOOW, given your information presented. I would not take the next 2-3 years off though and "coast" on dayshift.
Looking back on a 20+ nuclear career, I never passed up an opportunity to "do something extra". When making that decision it was generally not clear to me what the payback would be down the road. I never planned to do 20, let alone the highly unusual and challenging opportunities I was given in the Navy, and complained at times on my quality-of-life with the best of them! However, opportunities to advance were presented, I took them, and had a fantastic journey through the NNPP. In the end, I didn't have a problem arranging job interviews and had several offers with which to contemplate my 2nd nuclear career. I believe that was because I had a resume that showed I never took the easy route.
So, the "EOOW: What's in it for me?" question that you present isn't easily answered. Personally, I don't like the question in that you've been given an advanced opportunity than many of your peers will never have offered to them. I wouldn't toss it aside too quickly and say "I don't need it to be a Commercial SRO". So, what's in it for you? It's the highest nuclear qualification you can achieve. EWS does NOT equal EOOW. While both are HIGHLY respected and the NRC acknowledges both qualifications for Direct SRO prereq, EOOW is an "extra step" on your resume.
So, will not qualifying EOOW hurt you? I don't think so. I do know that it won't help you.
Congrats on the upcoming family addition! Very admirable that you so thoughtfully consider your family in these hard decisions. Good luck!
Co60