I mentioned this a little while back, but I got to thinking again and modified my idea slightly.
What if someone wanted to create a key for a lock, lets say a run of the mill schlage SC1. Instead of going through and impressioning a key normaly 1 pin stack at a time, why not create a set of 10 keys that are cut to code in all 10 positions. So you have one key thats 000, the next is 111, the next is 222, all the way up to a 999 key. You would then smoke these keys (or apply some other coating.)
By working through all 10 sets of keys and recording how each pin stack "rubs away" the smoking on each key, shouldn't you be able to derive a key for that lock in a relatively short amount of time?