In the power plant, turns out you can leave for the sewers as soon as you kill Sammis and grab the Power4 key. So, the ropewalking, waiting for the elevator, blaming Kendrick for standing in the way and wasting a few rockets on the crystal core, everything is unnecessary.

Also, when leaving the power plant, Blackbird won't give you the usual quote "One more adventure before Macil feels it's safe to attack...", but you'll find you will be able to flip the switch on the Sewers entrance.

That should shave another 30 seconds.

Interesting. Funny how these things get found after doing it so much. It happens in other games too, people realize you don't have to flip a certain switch or hit a certain trigger.

Nice find, and thanks :D

So I tried doing this and it seems like after killing the programmer and leaving the base there's a force field that keeps you in and won't let you get to the Borderlands. You could go through the sewers again but I feel like that's probably slower. Not sure if this is supposed to happen.