Personally I'd go for the short term thing given our position. Eg, my pick would be Dowie and I'd say come in on a contract til the end of the season, play off bonus, promotion bonus, then sit down again at the end of the season and see if it's the right thing for both parties going forward.
Amazingly we're still in with a great shout of the play offs if (and that's a big if) we can turn the form around very quickly.