I think compile times for LaTeX are an over-stated issues (I mean if nothing else it is really easy to get the document to compile in the background). But we should note that it isn't just a matter of length, there are various packages that require an additional pass over the document.
I went looking for a list of which packages increase pass counts and found
I remember that my undergrad thesis took ~8 compile passes to link up all the references correctly, and this was so common that the latex IDE I used had that as one of the possible "build" presets.
Yeah I've had some slides with a similar story, Tikz I think is one of the main villains there (memory is a bit hazy though, I've been avoiding that library).
I went looking for a list of which packages increase pass counts and found
https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/30674/document-requi...
the first infinite loop doesn't even really look to use anything exotic at all.