If other mods are involved, the Entropinnyum can also exceed the limit practically. And the Rafflowsia running at a 2 second interval can actually exceed it if you just have a spree that's long enough. And technically there are ways to have the Spectrolus exceed it as well by providing multiple wool items within the same tick, but the wool requirements are probably way too high to do this practically for extended periods of time.
Mana collection issues can usually be resolved by not limiting oneself to a single flower and thus being able to spread the output across several spreaders. "Ridiculously optimized" is a design goal you will want to achieve on your own, though. That's the entire point of the mod.
Anyway, if you want to get started with mana production, I recommend looking at combinations of tree farms and Munchdew mana generation, then try out other flower options as they become available. Using Create should help you a lot with the various farms required for certain flowers.