Per the advice I got here, I decided to use three sanders - one for each grit - to sand the many small parts of my current project.
Per my own stubbornness, I ignored several suggestions for how to immobilize groups of pieces for sanding and went with my own idea; a four-sided "corral" made of thinner stock than the pieces to be sanded.
It's working pretty well so far, especially after I made a small tweak on the second run.
The corral and wedges method works for me too. I do quick and dirty cheap awards plaques on the little CNC router using a similar method, only I route out a pocket to hold the plaques from sacrificial MDF. I'll set up to do one task, like round over the edges. I can unwedge, swap, and rewedge pretty quickly. Rounding over the edges on dozens of plaques per hour easily. Then I go through and repeat for the common engraving like organization, logo, year, etc. Then finally go through them again with the individual personalized stuff.
I had never thought of using it for sanding like you did, but it makes sense. I bet it improved your efficiency by an order of magnitude.
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