Minecarts aside, when dwarves actually start paying attention to stockpile settings, that's when I might start considering it playable. I was using minecarts as a workaround for a hauling problem in the first place.
Maybe you guys are patient enough to put up with (or don't pay enough attention to) the dwarves doing things like grabbing a full (minus one) bin, taking weeks carry it over to place it on a single item, and then running back and grabbing a wheelbarrow to run it back to the stockpile, even with input piles (which dwarves ignore because of another bug involving bins/barrels), sometimes turning off an entire industry for the entire period of time because they're carrying the bin full of job items. But I do, and that's not 'playable' to me.
Meh, minor issue if you don't use bins. Just my two cents.
Oh, and when I can eliminate an entire gameplay mechanic (item storage) by cramming an infinite amount of items onto one tile, in a space management game, that's cheating in my mind. Totally irrelevant to me how you feel about it.
You have much to learn about the Ways of the Sandbox, young Padawan. For instance, DF isn't a space management game, it's more of an imbicelle management game.
PS: Please, continue to tell me how you think I should be playing a sandbox game instead of discussing issues that stop minecarts from working and ways to work around them without cheating taking advantage of exploits which give me an unintended gameplay advantage which is somehow not cheating.
Sure.
First off, do the things suggested which avoid quantum stockpiling. Second, understand the one true(st) goal of DF: To fail amazingly. Or the second: To do as much as you can while you survive.
I'm glad you've figured out the solution, though. Seriously, if you go into a game with expectations of it being one thing and it turns out to be another, don't keep trying to pigeonhole it into your original expectations, and don't diss older versions which should be "playable" by your definition, and don't think that it won't get fixed better eventually.