Series A isn't "early" these days and 10k options reflects that. (100k is only 1% given 10M authorized, 10M being reasonably common for initial authorization and 1% being around market for an early engineer.)

That said, the strike price for common should still be reasonable at Series A - not $0.0001, but not $10 either, so 5-10k options can be around $10k. (Yes, a company can raise at $100M valuation even though the 10M common have a strike price of $1. The $100M is preferred.)

And, there's no law saying that 803(b) is all or nothing.