So buy a camera with more af points.
I've been shooting with a 1DMkii, and they way I focus for portraits has spoiled me so that I don't want to use a camera that won't let me do it my way.
My camera has an oval that contains 45 focus points. I use the center one for most of my pictures in landscape orientation. The camera allowed me to register that center point for the default focus point. I then set up the Star button to do AF while the button is pressed. That means that after I focus and let go of that button, the AF is OFF, and will maintain the focus achieved while the button was down. In all sorts of shooting, from nature to birds to city shots, separating the AF from the shutter button has been the greatest thing since sliced bread!
Now: for portraits, my camera lets me choose another focus point and register it as well. I have it set so that when I press another button (I don't remember what its symbol is and I don't have the camera handy) the single focus point switches to the rightmost focus point and turns on the AF, which it will hold as long as I have that button pushed (conveniently, with my thumb). This is great for a landscape shot where the subject is about 1/3 of the way in from the right. But the real advantage comes when I rotate the camera for a portrait. The focus point is now at the top of the camera, and in just the right spot for focusing on the eye in a portrait. This even avoids the "focus & recompose" error, which at a wide aperture can be visibly off because of the (desirable, in most cases) shallow depth of field.
Yes, there are ways to "make do" with cameras that don't have this capability. But when I bought this camera it was after I compared specs of many cameras, against a list of what I really considered necessary for my type of shooting. The extra money I sank into the camera seemed like a hardship six years ago, but the many features of the camera that seem tailored to my way of shooting have made it worth it over and over again.
Another thing I would not be without is the ability to bracket exposure by up to +/-3 stops, and to shoot a bracket of 5 or 7 shots (for HDR). I shudder to think of the expense when my camera gives up the ghost, but spending a few thousand dollars on a camera that won't do what I need it to would be a very bad decision. In this case, I'm happier with the lower number of pixels and the smaller sensor than a full frame camera that would curtail the way I like to shoot.