Well, the cracking looks pretty bad, and it kinda looks like the furring strips may be what's holding it up and keeping it all from falling down.The act of removing the furring strips could leave you with not much plaster left up there to repair. So #1 is out. Unless you can get up there and verify that the plaster is adhered pretty firmly to the lathe aside from the cracking. Id either go for #2 and call it a day, or #3 but may I ask why does the lathe have to come down? I tend to be a purist, have done a lot of crack repair on my own ceilings, but ceilings that are too far gone are the one place where drywall imakes sense - its unobtrusive, not so noticeable up there andeasy to install because there's no trim to contend with. Because of this thing called gravity, ceiling plaster does tend to be looser and more of a mess and hence more difficult to repair.

I had the same plastic tile in a rental! After I took it off, it took about a gallon of joint compound to level the walls, and even then...those were my newbie days. So dumb I used ready patch instead of mixing up some good stuff that I could breathe while using. The house had been moved three blocks in the 50's and the walls were really off, above and beyond anything my simple patching could do, so I added textured wallpaper in a nod to the lincrusta/analgypta style (except it was the 12.50/roll stuff from HD because my landlord was thrifty-minded): Wish I had a picture without the sagging oak leaves and with the chair rail we eventually added. We enjoyed that bathroom for a good three years until we finally bought our own fixer. And I was glad for the practice on that place; gad what a newbie I was (and I'll be saying the same thing of myself now in 5 years). but at least thanks to casey, worthy, brickeyee, and macv, I use the right stuff on plaster now (bonding agent, durabond, and sometimes easysand, depending on the situation). Anyway the lincrusta look worked very well for us. We painted it with BM blue lapis, then bought the bottom of the color strip (darkest, I think it was simply called Navy or Blue), mixed 50/50 with glaze, and rolled on, then wiped off with paper towels until we had the tone-on tone look we were going for. Man I loved those walls, and got lots of compliments. They were inspired by the bar in the the British show As Time Goes By, if you ever saw that one. Except those were a brownish red instead of blue.

It sounds like you have what you need, and that you just need some practice. Any corded drill (or cordless) can handle this job. It sounds like you have standard, inexpensive bits which are usually high speed steel (HSS), and those are fine, too. You may want to get some better quality bits (like titanium coated) in the future. Unless your walls are actually concrete, you have no need of specialty tools, like a hammer drill or masonry bits. Impact drivers are wonderful specialty tools for driving fasteners into tough materials, but it would be the wrong tool to use on this project. (It would be nice to have a cordless drill-driver if you are driving screws, but you don't absolutely need that, and you need to master the use of a regular drill first.) Plaster drilling dulls bits faster than using them in wood, so you might want to have some extra bits on hand. And even though I have been using tools for over 50 years, I, too, occasionally break small diameter bits, so I keep cheap spares around. While I tend to buy high quality power tools, when it comes to disposables, like bits, I look for bargains since I do a lot of drilling; for your drilling needs, you might want to look at a place like Harbor Freight tools: Drill bits You can get decent bits there for cheap, including things like a set of half a dozen 1/16" or 3/32" or 1/8" bits for a couple of bucks. They have stores in many areas of the country and you can buy online. Too many homeowners have one set of bits that get dull early on and never get replaced, so I suggest you pick up some extras and toss them out when they quit performing well. Good luck, and tell me what happens when you try this again. Do you think it would help your skills development if you practice drilling into a scrap of wood first, just to get the hang of handling your new tool? I also assume that you have a standard variable speed drill, and it would be better to use it at a slower speed when going in to plaster. And did you confirm that the forward-reverse switch was in the correct position? :-)

We pulled down soffits during a total kitchen remodel a few years ago, as well as the removal of fake beams in the livingroom. Although we didn't have plaster to contend with, we did have to fill the hole left by the soffit removal. A good sheetrock person should be able to patch the holes in your ceiling. Our sheetrock expert applied a knockdown finish in the kitchen and you can't tell the soffits were ever there. In the livingroom, he changed a poorly textured cathedral ceiling to a smooth surface that shows absolutely no trace of the old beams, nail holes, etc. I recall him saying that it was actually easier to put a skim coat over the whole ceiling than it was to retexture everything. See if you can get a couple referrals. You might want to sign up for Angie's List online (https://www.angieslist.com) to see about getting referrals from people who have utilized good tradesmen in your area.