Well I'm certainly impressed with all the different play styles and preferences -- and that's just from ~4-5 of us. It's pretty hard to compare notes between us given some pretty significant choices we make. I probably can't do justice to every variation listed, but...
Limiting to 1 quest per day will certainly slow a player's ability to purchase filters for a Dew Collector compared to those who do more questing.
Limiting loot to 50% will make gathering water and the resources to make Dew Collectors take longer plus reduce the amount of Dukes you can earn from selling salvage.
Changing the day length to 30 minutes will certainly change the day counts we compare. One week at 60 minutes is 2 weeks at 30 minutes.
If you're regularly getting mauled by zombies, you'll spend more time healing and/or go through more food and water.
Staying at base during the night, and feeling compelled to return to base before night, takes time.
Then there are clear differences in goals. Folks are prioritizing things like mining and base building.
If I try to make a mental image of what that kind of play would be like, I can start to see how you have a significant water scarcity for many game days and that you don't get Dew Collector production settled into "water stability" (aka infinite water) -- defined by me as producing 10 jars of potable water per day -- until you get to a 2-3 week point in the game.
Efficient or Inefficient, exploit or not an exploit -- all opinion, so I'll leave those alone. I don't care to have my play labeled as "exploitive" because I don't think I'm cheating. I'm just playing. But I get that you're not necessarily calling that an insult so much as a comparative to your own ideal game.
Objectively speaking, we have different priorities because of our different choices. A comparison:
There's no way I'm building a base until I have water and food solved. Grass fiber clothes are fine until water and food are solved. Higher quality weapons and armor are conveniences, and they can wait until water and food are solved. Armor -- that's the one thing I'll work on other than water and food. I need about two pieces of armor to address the occasional hits from zombies.
So I guess it's no wonder why we kick around the water debate so much. We have wildly different preferences that completely skew what is optimal.
EDIT: Let me add that I like a mobile combatant play style, so run-and-gun, etc. I don't need a horde base to survive a horde. A horde base just lets me earn more experience. I'll use a horde base in the late game. This means I have no reason to mine and build anything significant until late game. I can leave my workstations and chests on an empty lot if I want -- though I usually take over something like a trailer.