As hinted by the title, I somewhat prematurely started optimizing for cycles thinking I've already found the smallest area. I was happy with my 223 cycles 39a but had to bin it when I found 38a, which of course I also spent a bunch of time optimizing cycles for, because "clearly 38 is min area for a rotary assembly"... 294 cycles. It turns out that I didn't realize that donuts exist until the moment when I was writing the notes for my 38a, titled "Min spinny", thinking about how I should formulate my reasoning for why I did in fact not waste any hexes.