I think the speed the current deck finished is the way forward. Most of that two years referenced above was between the beginning and end phases, when things took a long time to get moving. Waiting weeks for responses to threads is the killer (and then sometimes going round in circles), just ends up with the same handful people trying to keep things going. We're always going to get a decent contribution at the suggestion stage for obvious reasons but then a lot of those contributors who then entered he creation phase gradually trailed off (no doubt because of that pace being lost). Brigs kept the pace in his decks similar to the end of this one too and knocked them out quick. If that is aimed for and kept up, I don't see why a deck couldn't be done a lot quicker.
We did start the current deck in slightly muddled waters too in terms of a non print with 90 cards and then make up (Med starter theme, admirals) and some time was wasted on several units that were then dropped.
"That's right son, join the navy. Get behind a bloody big gun and knock the hell out of somebody"
"We went out, got our arses kicked, then came back again"