Obsession with perfection...
Normally I'd caution against this, looking for perfection in an imperfect World is a guaranteed road to disappointment, however, because the current Build of Terraria is so diverse in possible approaches, I'll humor the idea with an answer that'll come as close to "perfect" as you'll probably ever get [I think].
I'm gonna go ahead and assume
you want it all. The first thing I would've suggested, before you started was a Drunk World Seed, here you'd have access to nearly every Weapon, Ammo-Type and Buff possible
in the game [for the most part]. It'd be possible to actually mix
Ichor and
Cursed Flames together, with some other additional Debuffs for maximum DoT.
In addition to this, you'd've had access to
two Town NPCs almost immediately, once you started building Housing.
I'm not sure if time or results are the more important resource to you, but if you did start the process of building Housing early enough, you could start prepping for other NPCs to move in and
just build Biome Housing as you go! They don't have to be fancy, but the efficiency here would be the swift resource gathering, once Pylons start showing up.
You'll be able to zip around the Map in seconds, early-game, to whatever Biome, rare Event, or specific Location you want,
for whatever reason is most important to you. Here you trade time investment for time saved [it's a pretty interesting mechanic IMHO].
...efficiency, function > fashion, etc. Something that fulfills that.
Regardless of what you'll typically hear,
always having Gold to spend as you please is
extremely Meta in Terraria, and unless you know how to duplicate Items, Happy NPCs and selling repeat items, is the fastest, most efficient way to get there IMHO!
- pre Queen Bee, post-BoC.
- no grinding, no farming, just normal progression.
- selling items to my Happiest NPC, and using Biome Torches for luck.
- no Fishing Items available yet.
- no duplications sold [using research feature].
- all legit.
It's important to note that I'm already at Platinum Income, and I'm pretty easy-going about spending, for Décor, for rare Items [like Food, Sake, and rare Paintings]. I'll always have more-than-enough for Upgrading and Reforging [which is extremely Meta],
a common shortcoming you'll regularly hear about from other Terrarians [being poor].
Probably 2 and/or 3 of the 4 you posted. A base and character build that all Terrarians that can agree is "perfect" and everyone will use in their runs (collect for their character build at the end of their run) if they can't think of something of their own to make and want efficiency.
If you're already post-Mech, I'd recommend setting up a central Teleporter Base, with access to as many "harvesting points" as possible, Pylons can be used to speed this process up, but definitely replace them with Teleporters once you have access to them.
Most Terrarians seem to agree that Expert Mode is the most balanced and enjoyable, if you're looking for a challenge. If you wanna spice things up though, try
Master Mode. It's much more punishing, but... if you're looking for a legit measure of what's actually Meta, look no further [though
Master, FTW is likely the most accurate measuring stick IMHO].
When you start dominating, you'll actually feel the spike in power, because Bosses will rarely ever be "pushovers", so when you obliterate them much later on, you'll know you've earned it!
Lastly, if you wanna be super efficient, I'd say look into learning to build Mechanisms and [insert name here] Engines with Wire, Timers, Traps and Logic Gates. You can likely go "fully automated" at certain points in the game, but these admittedly take a LOT of time to build and design, so "borrowing" a few ideas here and there won't hurt [see T-MEC].