Okay I might have over exaggerated a little but even your math and experiments show that it's possible to travel over 11,000 blocks in ten minutes. Thats pretty good in my opinion.
Interestingly, I never thought of the time difference between stairs and a ladder. Thats a valid point you have for certain too. The quick towers with the WASD stairs (ascend four blocks in four blocks) would be very much quicker although would take more time constructing.
I never mentioned the effectiveness of flying a concentric circle from the center of the ladder tower out. Great way to discover new cave systems and ruins. (This is how bees forage for resources too, we can learn a lot from a colony of bees)
The cool thing about using ladders too is that they break down rapidly when the bottom ladder is removed.
Really I am looking into streaming my content as I feel I have a lot to offer for others because I learn a lot from others too. I never imagined at 44 Id become so enthralled with a computer game but I am here to stay. Im even looking into getting my kids computers to play along side me. I homeschool them and theres a very crafty artistic side to this game indeed. Teamwork you name many possibilities.