If Google is indeed sandboxing new sites for a period of 6 months or more, then what is that costing you while you wait? If your site truly would have ranked well during that time, but is being placed "on hold", you could easily be losing out on a lot of money. One option to avoid the long wait is to purchase a related, already existing site. Is there a hobby site, or a long-forgotten site buried in the SERPs that is related to your topic? You may be able to purchase the site from the owner for very little money. Whatever you pay for it, it could very well be less than the cost of waiting around for a new domain to come out of the sandbox. Buy the existing site, do whatever you would have done to make a new site, and watch as your rankings rise much more quickly than a new domain would have. I cannot guarantee that this will circumvent the sandbox woes, but it seems like the best option right now.