No.3) The DC current gain (hFE from the datasheet) is around 100 for the BC548 so you only need about 200uA of base current to saturate. Not sure where you got a gain of 20 but 1mA of base current won't hurt the transistor. It will just saturate the it a bit harder and make Vce smaller.
HFE is used only for a linear transistor that has a lot of collector to emitter voltage (5V for the BC548). The datasheet for every transistor shows the Max Saturation Voltage Loss only when the base current is 1/10th or 1/20th of the collector current when the transistor must saturate.
The datasheet for the BC548 doesn't even show its minimum HFE at 100mA, just the typical HFE of 110.
Maybe you can measure hundreds of transistors to find one that saturates well with a low base current. The guaranteed spec's in the datasheet are for all transistors, not just for the best ones.