@Toxophilite [East]
Here's a screenshot of my base/house on the current/lates playthrough (relevant to the thread)
There's a large storage vault under, but that's not related to alchemy. there are also planter boxes, but doesn't have an actual complex greenhouse there, it's just 10-15 planter boxes each, at towns related to whatever herb, e.g. moonglow at jungle town.
The alchemy corner is very compact, placed next to the bathroom for easy access to water (for bottled water) - there's also a glass kiln in the basement to make bottles (why can't you actually just buy they from the merchant?)
the left glass chest holds bottles, bottled water, herbs, and other ingredients, like some fish like prismite, armored cavefish, variegated lardfish, etc. iron ore is stored in the chest for metals above the hellforge, but it's close enough to reach from the 2nd floor. the right glass chests has potions, whether brewn or found in chests.
it's compact and easy to use without having to run around too much looking for stuff in your storages.
I'm not doing industrial amount of alchemy, only brew potions prior to cases that require it (boss fights, events, or specific potions when adventure needs it (for examle spelunker, only when looking for specifically rare treasures (life fruits) or want to see how big a vein of ore is (regarding clorophyte in the jungle)
have each relevant towns built near large lakes, to have a calm fishing spot for most of the relevant fish.
it's a softcore character, in an expert mode world.
I used to play only normal mode in the past, so while now I'm not bad on expert anymore either, I try to utilise potions at most boss fights. because expert can be tough. but I will not brew potions for everyday use. that's too much a hassle, and generally unnecessary.
Initially, I knew very little about potions at the very first playthroughs. mostly learned about them via mods - alchemist NPCs mostly, where I started to use some potions for boss fights, since they were easy to get. once 1.4 came out, I'm playing vanilla (wanna play modded too, hopefully T-modloader updates soon...) and since there's no brewer NPC, I decided to learn a bit about alchemy, and brew some potions. So, I have this compact alchemy corner design, and have some planter boxes at towns - sometimes larger greenhouses too, depening on playthrough. - and most towns are built near lakes.
But with more than, umm, like 2 000 hours in the game, I think it's not that perticularly special, that I do brew some potions too. I did not done that, when I was new to the game.
Anyway. Point being, I don't brew tons of potions, just a few that I use for mostly boss fights. but it is not journey mode.
And, the only one case where I actually noticed that I went past the buff limit was the battle with moon lord. because this is expert, and I didn't wanted to have Albus turned into a pile of ashes by Moon Lord's deathray in 5 secons. on the first try, it still didn't took him longer than 10-15 seconds to fry my summoner with the deathray. even with tons of buffs, it took me around 15 tries (I cheated in like 20 celestial sigils, because redoing the lunar apocalypse a bajillion times is just awful), to defeat moon lord twice for enough luminite for the full stardust armor.
I developed some strategies, heavily relying on mobility, instead of trying to stand ground, which will not work well... XD
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Anyway, actually, I think I've noticed something here.
Almost all (if not all) cases here who talk about exceeding the buff limits are players who had/have a summoner class playthrough. Including me too. Though not pure summoner, but a summoner/mage hybrid (though more on the summoner side)
What I think is, it might be about that it do happens sometimes, that we get past the buff limit (at a few boss fights) but due to the boss fights being fast paced, we might not notice a buff getting cancelled on its own. like half of the usual buffs for boss battles are quite passive - like ironskin, or endurance - and are hard to notice, whether it is active or not, mid-battle.
however when crucial "buffs" getting discarded that are extremely noticeable, we will, obviously, notice it. almost all examples were about the minion(s) getting de-summoned, I think it was only me who also brought up an example with mana regen potion (also a very noticeable one mid-fight)
so, I think, it might be possible, that the more focus summoner class got with 1.4.1 - and therefore more players trying it - brought this issue a bit more in highlight again, because the buff limit is almost never exceeded normally, the only case when it tends to happen is late-game boss fights, where it might also happened with melee or ranger, etc. but they might often not notice a passive buff getting cancelled (like ironskin, or regen potion) but summoners usually have their summons in the first slot (after pet and light pet, but they will be disabled for these fight usually, to free two slots) which is what most likely will end up cancelled by the game, upon exceeding the limit. ...right?
So, I think, this is mostly about an issue which is rare, but probably very rarely appears with all classes, however only very noticeable with summoners.