Since I am a Middle Eastern dancer, I have to do my toes quite often.
Before my current profession, I was actually a stylist in a salon. What I have found from my experience, is that many layers of base coat, polish, and top coat just don't work for me, unless I am in a salon where they have one of those special lights you hold your nails under to fully dry them HARD in just about 20 minutes time.
My recommendations:
~for dark or bright polish, try to use either nail polish that covers in one coat, or regular polish (that you have to use 2 coats of) that has a built in topcoat, so that you are down to 3 layers instead of four. This should save you some drying time.
~If you are using a bright or dark color, then always use a base coat, but if you are doing a sheer shade like light pink, beige, nude, sheer sparkley, etc. then you can actually skip the base coat, and not worry about staining your nails.
~Wear lighter colored polish. It has less pigment, and dries in shorter time.