I don't wanna start a fight with any of the best speedrunners on this demo YET- but I wanna ask if there were any other, perhaps faster routes to finishing this without any potential sidetracks or slowdowns of any kind.

Not entirely certain. It's quite possible there's a better route, but there isn't much speedrun buzz for this demo, and the current route is really good and has essentially everything you need, but who knows. Somebody could definitely experiment and find a better way to do things (like you, perhaps).