If you don't want to take Savant, you could shell out for Morning Sim and Night Owl, which together are basically Savant Lite- I believe they give the same or similar skilling boost to Savant, and being worth only half the reward points and the mood boost they give makes up for the fact that they aren't in effect 24/7.
On the ideal mood, I don't know how to help you. I also noticed that inspired doesn't seem to help, which is super weird. Maybe the ideal mood is playful? Or it just doesn't have an ideal mood? Both options don't really make any sense and the latter would be a rather big oversight on the part of the developers, but I can't think of any other options.