I have floor rot on drivers side under clutch pedal and below rear seat. Both areas are about 12"x12". Passenger side looks good. What is easier, front and rear patch panels, full drivers side panel, or full floor pan replacement .

If there are only smaller area's and not any rot anywhere else i ususally just cut that area out and leave as much original sheet metal as possible. I cut up a new replacement floor pan to fit the area. The re-pop sheetmetal is not an exact fit and you have to work with it.
Depending how ambitious you are you can either butt weld or overlap.Remember that overlaps in sheetmetal can rust out down the road if they are not sealed up from water getting back in.

I always do lap joints, mostly because trying to fit a patch perfectly to butt weld is near impossible and beyond my abilities and patience. Lap joints, welded top and bottom, are more sturdy.

Yes lap joints are good, it's looking good so far.
As it was said, make sure to seam seal the underneath so no water can get into it.
Looking good

I did lap joints and welded both sides. Then ground the welds under the car and smoothed out with seam sealer before spraying with epoxy primer. I liked how it turned out.

I have a similar problem. My driver side pan needs replacing. The other pans are fine except that the pinch welds for the floor are 75% buggered. Can't really fix that with small patches given that is where the load is for the floor.

I'm going with a full floor pan (w/o trunk).

I have always wondered how bad it would be to do a full one piece floor.

Hard tops are easier than a vert with the braces. I am just finishing my new floor and braces, and it's a lot of work. Panels fit ok to good, but all need tweaking to get a proper weld. There is one spot on all the floors near driver feet area that fits for crap and needs to be cut and re welded. that was a PITA. I now only have seat pans to install and the floor is complete. My trunk is out of the car in this picture and this is after media blasting.