Missions & Complexes

If you try to snipe from 90km then yes, they are inefficient.

For best results you need, this may come as a shock to you, to be as close to NPC group as possible. For that you of course may need to use MJD and/or MWD/AB and at close distance you may need decent tank. But the upshot is that Void rapes everything up to 20km, from cruisers to battleships, Null is VERY EFFICIENT at killing similar stuff from 20 to 40km and still does the job at 50 or slightly farther, and Antimatter blaps frigs/dessies from 10 to 35km. (exact ranges may vary depending on actual fit).

Using this guidelines netted me 21,5mil tick, when I managed to position myself at spawn point (Catching The Scent from Amarr Epic Arc).

Back to Dirk. Reading your description I got impression that you are not too experienced mission runner. If that's so, then your approach is correct and there's no need to change anything until you get really good grasp of what your ship can and what it can't do (sadly the latter is usually combined with the risk of exploding). But when you start knowing your way around I recommend changing fitting and tactics from time to time. For once it reduces the boredom and also this way you may find another playing style, which you may like more than the one you have started with.

As to the topic, of regular missions I think the AE bonus is generally the hardest. There are other missions which can surprise you when you aren't prepared but this one is just tough.

Of storylines, as I recall (not doing them anymore) the mentioned Evolution, also bonus room.

And Epic Arcs. Each of them has its grand finale mission which is usually hardest of the chain but to me and my Kronos the worst was The Showtime from Gallente Arc, which I finished having significant damage at hull. It was thanks to Bastion and Mobile Depot that I didn't lose the ship. (OTOH the Bastion may have been the part of the problem because I'm growing suspicious that speed tanking is the best way of handling this mission).

Yes world collides have to be the hardest lv 4 mission I've done.

Mainly because I lost my navy raven due to scrambling frigates, drone aggro and jamming that ran out my cap. I'm still bitter about it

I do all my missions in high sec. Only leave it for exploration or PVP

On a few rare occassions I will pull out the Mach or Nightmare for solo Minnie/Amarr missions (respectively), or the SNI for dual-boxing, but typically I don't use battleships anymore. Really don't need to for high sec missions.

Sorta, kinda. There are needs and there are needs.

If you need a ship just to complete the mission, you can do it even with an assfrig. Jokes about Drakes being used there are not even funny. Hell, if you play things right, you probably could finish the mission even with an exhumer or an indy.

Though if you need a ship to run missions efficiently then... well, let me put it this way: I was thinking the same way like you until I completed training ship and gun related skills and trained gun specialization. Judging both from EFT stats and my first-hand experience I see no way how T3 can be faster at finishing the mission than properly fitted and flown battleship, even vanilla Tech1. But T3s are admittably easier to fly and to tank, of course.

This is why a bastioned marauder beats the Tengu in this mission.

Not sure I can agree with this. But since I have recorded some mission times lately with the HAMgu, I'll do the same with Battleship hulls and draw my own conclusion.

That was just the folklore, I can neither confirm nor deny the truth. I'm talking pre-HML devastation here.

Any specifics?
For example I MJD'd into the middle of the Battleship spawn (Blood Riders) in the last pocket of Dread Pirate Scarlet just to see how much beating the bastioned Kronos with 74.5/70.9/75.1/54 damage profile can take. Spawn after spawn, armor down to ~35% and back up to ~90% with a single rep cycle and with the DPS over 1600 with 11km optimal it was a massacre.

The Kronos became a monster. I have yet to try the Vargur and the Paladin with the Bastion Module, but I was not really impressed with the performance of the TorpGolem.