My original plan 20 years ago was to use 72t, but now that I'm considering ESR around age 50 with highly variable earned income and a pension eligibility kicking in at age 55, I think I've decided to just take the 10% penalty on any retirement fund withdrawals before I'm 59.5 as I'll be in the 10% or 12% tax bracket when I do, and 72t isn't flexible enough for my situation, and I don't have the time to build a Roth ladder, and it would cost as much in today taxes to do Roth conversions as it would to pay the penalty later. (Wow, that was one sentence.)
If I had to do it all over again I might have tried harder to build up Roth IRAs at tax-convenient times.
Here is a good brief overview of accessing retirement money early:
https://www.madfientist.com/how-to-access-retirement-funds-early/
Edit: Yeah, if your sizeable 401k is at your current company or if you could roll it there, the retire at 55 option might work for you. I don't think I can wait that long, but we'll see.