Thanks sinver, added your suggestions as alternative 3
Suppose if your hyperlinks are blue then you are using the Mobile style (for access from phones) or the Blue style (the one I'm using, and the one the Index is optimised for in terms of looks).
At first I thought Alternative 2 is more practical but then again you'd have to be paying attention to the status bar or the mouse pointer to know that you're hovering over a hyperlink in that case too so perhaps it doesn't make much difference in terms of practicality... Anyway awaiting more comments