Fine Woodworking magazine had a competition between hand planing and power sanding.
They call it the Surface Prep Shootout. Hand planes won (sharpening included). I'm sure it's all subjective, but they had an audience of judges...( was Lie Nielsen one of them)
I was surprised. My own tests confirm that sanding is way faster.
I would say belt sanding before the RO sanding would speed things up a lot.
I use 2- RO sanders one in each hand for large areas ( is that cheating?)
Does anyone have more ideas to keep us power tool users out of the losers bracket?