My proposal: Dedicated High-throughput "Belt" system.
High-throughputBelt.jpg
One or more loading stations connected to one or more unloading stations by pipe-like structure. Every pipe is capable of replacing 4 fully compressed belts. Items in the pipe don't interact with anything but the (un ...

I'am not an expert, but this is my "build":

1. Iron - 2 drills -> 1 crusher -> 1 box -> 2 furnaces -> 1 box
Manually extract crushed stone whenever you need stone and later add an assembler.
Second furnace is there for manual inserting from the crusher.
It is not an efficient setup, but good enough ...

At risk of Flame - I think the complexity of Nuclear Power is perfect for Vanilla [/b

I agree, closed water cycle would be nice, but for vanilla it's OK.

One possible improvement: second tier of reactor "experimental reactor" with some unusual properties
1) alternative fuel - something like ...

Another improvement could be some mechanism that automaticaly splits these huge segments around the player and bitter's paths, so any sudden change wouldn't required recalculation of whole block.