I took a year off to travel before my current job. Best thing I ever did. Before leaving, I made sure I had several standing job offers. Get your foot in the door when you're in a stronger position. Do it for your own peace of mind if nothing else. You don't want to spend half of your sabbatical worrying about what to do when it's over.
You found companies willing to wait a year for you to start? That's surprising, I wouldn't have guessed that would be easy to do. I'm thinking about this myself, but I'm looking to join a startup and I can't imagine that would be feasible given that a year is a long time for a startup.
