Oh, just saw your PM too.
To answer your PM inquiry and this together I guess, otoing really depends on how much you're recording and otoing at a time. What I do is record a single page of strings at a time (I look at a song and write the strings needed that I still haven't recorded on a piece of lined paper - this makes your UTAU able to sing more songs quicker, but eventually you'll need to fill in the gaps and the syllables rarely used). Then, after I record that page, I oto it. I've never timed it, but it doesn't take overly long and this method makes me not explode with frustration at how long the oto takes. Unfortunately, a downside is that it takes forever for me to get the motivation together to record and oto.
Now, you are using the standard method of otoing VCV, right? ___, 450, -something, 300, 100 - or the derivative where you use your tempo (if you recorded with one) to calculate values that suit your recordings that are still uniform? If all your values are different on every note...you're doing it wrong. Some banks can pull it off, but that's a rare thing and it's a lot safer to do the uniform method.