Well, he did one in Season 2 that was before the Redstone Tubes, which had to rock back and forth to punch through the ground because it had separate timers for redstone to activate the block breakers. There was also one that used Mining Wells and frames, that was very quick.
I know some other people have done other versions. DocRedstone did one that used block breakers and the placer to extend a head to the bottom of a shaft, breaking the blocks as they came back up. Odedex did one that was super wide, and slowly worked up and down a 'face' before moving forward. Me, I took advantage of the flat bedrock of Ultimate, and made a massive knife that cut a one block wide path through the world. Got me all level's resources at once.