I would go with the second approach. Quickly thinking about the two suggestions trying to figure out where they could go south I can't come up with anything as long as the schema remains as simple as suggested in the post.

The difference between the two abstractions you suggest is not huge and the simpler one - well - is simpler to understand. If you don't see a reason the underlying DB should change and completely change the paradigm it's built on you should be fine with whichever.