> Minecarts get to be more useful when you want to travel long distances without having to touch the controls.

This and you can (and should) build roller coasters.

With piston bolts [0] travelling long distances got even faster. They push the minecart forward at redstone tick speeds and are server side so they're really efficient.

But there was a faster way with a machine called "ender pearl cannon" [1]. I don't know if they still work though. They're quite complex to build but allowed to travel tens of thousands blocks very precisely in less than a minute.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGcGU9ay9io [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eOIVPQYOt8

You can make overly expensive unguided bombs by using TNT minecarts. They can be very effective for saturation bombing of areas. You can effectively eliminate the risk of Pillager outposts with a few of those configured around it. When they respawn you can trigger the system and have an on-demand air-raid. There's not much the mobs can do against an aerial bombardment.

You can also create land-mines with pressure plates.

When I used to play I found it more convenient to travel long distances using nether portals.