I've been timing how much time it may save to do MF straight away and get Monkey Bullet with warp dance. From what I can tell, it loses about 40s in MF and saves about a minute on Main Street. Unfortunately, this does lose 24 gems as it skips 5 pots in Main Street and 3 can be picked up in Falls, so it just depends on whether more gems can be picked up in 20s. Can someone else please time these to verify.

Actually, there are 2 pots on the left side of MF1 that aren't too far out of the way so this route should definitely save time when optimised.

For good discussion about routes you might want to join Discord?

FYI, I've tried timing this a couple of times. I estimate this is actually about 30 seconds slower due to having to untransform to get pots we get in current routes throughout Factory as well as being taken back to Scuttle Town after completing Falls and having to leave to go back to Main Street which is avoided in the current route getting Bullet before Mermaid Falls.

I tested this a lot yesterday and the fastest route I could come up with ended up being about 20 seconds behind the early bullet route.