The following document isn't fully up to date--I haven't transferred over the last four log entries, or the data from the first 10 hundred-coin stars. However, since those two stars, I stopped keeping my paper log, because it was getting too frustrating-- nearly every log entry before this had at least one star per play session, and it was very disappointing to play for an hour or so and not make any progress.

Of course the hundred-coin stars are supposed to be difficult, but some of the design makes them especially frustrating. In shifting-sands land, once you go into the pyramid, there better be enough coins in there, or you're stuck. The use of the blue coin-boxes is especially frustrating if you don't know where the coins will show up. In particular, I went into the pyramid, got basically all the way through it, had 86 coins, and then finally found the blue coin box. I didn't know where the coins would show up, and the game chose to play camera tricks on me, so I didn't find them in time.

The key problems that make them frustrating: non-renewable resources (the blue coin boxes and creatures that die and cough up coins that then become inaccessible) and too much peril (shifting-sands land's quicksand [which is especially disheartening when you're riding a turtle shell which bonks a wall due to camera problems], or too much danger of falling in tall, tall mountain and tick-tock clock).

During my second complete playthrough of Mario 64, about two years after my original playthrough, I kept a log of the time at which I got each star. Here's the data out of that log, plus some interesting derived info.

Sign-in / Sign-out log

World Summary Log

This table indicates the time spent in each completed world, except for getting 100 coins--that is, the cost of getting the 6 basic stars.. Not all of this time was spent consecutively, since, for example, the wing cap was needed to complete world 1. I've got the first 13 hundred-star coins, but it's taken a while and been so frustrating to get a few of them that I stopped keeping track of the time.

World	Time Spent (hours:minutes)	coins (without trying to maximize)
1. Bom-omb Battlefield	0:28	38
2. Whomp's Fortress	0:37	47
3. Jolly Roger Bay	0:33	76
4. Cool, Cool Mountain	0:34	59
5. Big Boo's Haunt	0:25	42
6. Hazy Maze Cave	0:29	25
7. Lethal Lava Land	0:23	25
8. Shifting Sands Land	1:07	33
9. Dire, Dire Docks	0:23	55
10. Snowman's Land	0:24	28
11. Wet-Dry World	0:53	39
12. Tall, Tall Mountain	1:11	45
13. Tiny-Huge Island	1:30	28
14. Tick Tock Clock	0:39	16
15. Rainbow Ride	1:22	18

Other stars:

Star	Time Spent
swimming for 8 red	0:03
princess slide	0:02
princess slide 0:20"6	0:08
wing cap 8 red	0:12
rabbit #1	0:03
mushroom kid #1	0:01
rabbit #2	0:06
vanish cap 8 red	0:09
metal cap 8 red	0:11
mushroom kid #2	0:01
mushroom kid #3	0:02
cloud world	0:16

Other items:

wing cap	0:02
vanish cap	0:07
metal cap	0:28
Bowser #1	0:05
Bowser #2	0:14

World Star Breakdown

Stars that took at least ten minutes appear in bold.

World	1	2	3	4	5	6
1. Bom-omb Battlefield	0:05	0:07	0:02	0:06	0:06	0:02
2. Whomp's Fortress	0:05	0:03	0:06	0:19	0:03	0:01
3. Jolly Roger Bay	0:05	0:02	0:03	0:14	0:05	0:04
4. Cool, Cool Mountain	0:03	0:11	0:04	0:08	0:03	0:06
5. Big Boo's Haunt	0:06	0:02	0:02	0:05	0:08	0:02
6. Hazy Maze Cave	0:03	0:12	0:04	0:02	0:06	0:02
7. Lethal Lava Land	0:04	0:08	0:02	0:03	0:04	0:02
8. Shifting Sands Land	0:03	0:03	0:06	0:04	0:29	0:21
9. Dire, Dire Docks	0:03	0:05	0:08	0:04	0:02	0:01
10. Snowman's Land	0:08	0:02	0:01	0:05	0:03	0:05
11. Wet-Dry World	0:08	0:03	0:17	0:06	0:16	0:02
12. Tall, Tall Mountain	0:16?	0:04	0:08	0:02	0:11	0:27
13. Tiny-Huge Island	0:09	0:09	0:12	0:38	0:15	0:07
14. Tick Tock Clock	0:01?	0:08	0:08	0:15	0:02	0:05
15. Rainbow Ride	0:31	0:12	0:08	0:23	0:04	0:04

Chronological event log

Stars are indicated as a pair of numbers, e.g. 3-1 means world 3 (Jolly Roger Bay), star #1 (of 6). The 100-coin stars are indicated as the seventh star, e.g. 3-7. Some times are inflated by time spent navigating the castle. Note that this isn't a competition; the issue isn't whether you can do it faster, but whether there is something to learn from this data.

Event	Time	comments
1-1	0:05
1-2	0:07
1-3	0:02
1-4	0:06
4-1	0:03
4-2	0:11
4-3	0:04
4-4	0:08
4-5	0:03
4-6	0:06
2-1	0:05
2-2	0:03
2-3	0:06
2-4	0:19	used up six lives
2-5	0:03
2-6	0:01
swimming for 8 red	0:03
3-1	0:05
3-2	0:02
3-3	0:03
3-4	0:14	missed a shell in a shallow
3-5	0:05
princess slide	0:02
princess slide 0:20"6	0:08
wing cap	0:02
wing cap 8 red	0:12
Bowser #1	0:05
rabbit #1	0:03
mushroom kid #1	0:01
vanish cap	0:07
7-1	0:04	decided to do the worlds in numeric order
6-6	0:02
6-1	0:03
5-1	0:06
5-2	0:02
5-3	0:02
5-4	0:05
5-5	0:08	stupid camera, stupid final jumping
5-6	0:02
6-2	0:12
6-5	0:06
6-4	0:02
7-2	0:08
7-3	0:02
7-4	0:03
7-5	0:04
7-6	0:02
8-1	0:03
8-2	0:03
metal cap	0:28	took a long time to find it, because I kept searching the hazy maze, because one of the signs seemed to imply it was in there.
6-3	0:04	going back to finish levels that needed caps
1-5	0:06
1-6	0:02
3-6	0:04
rabbit #2	0:06
8-3	0:06
8-4	0:04
8-5	0:29	I forgot about the cannon, and spent a long time trying to win it without
8-6	0:21
9-1	0:03
9-2	0:05
9-4	0:04
9-6	0:01
Bowser #2	0:14	spent some time trying to do 9-3
9-3	0:08
9-5	0:02
vanish cap 8 red	0:09
metal cap 8 red	0:11
10-1	0:08
10-2	0:02
10-3	0:01
10-4	0:05	"suck" (egg-guy non-renewable resources?)
10-5	0:03
10-6	0:05
11-1	0:08
11-2	0:03
11-3	0:17
11-4	0:06
11-5	0:16	"camera suck"
11-6	0:02
12-1	0:16	might be 0:06; the start time isn't legible
12-2	0:04
12-3	0:08	"suck" (having no clue where the final secret might be
12-4	0:02
mushroom kid #2	0:01
12-5	0:11	"tedious; bug, restart on race" (i.e after win race, don't take star, then die; on reentry you have to race again.
12-6	0:27	"boring trial-and-error"
mushroom kid #3	0:02
13-1	0:09	bad design: fireball-launcher next to water (silly because it's easy to get your health back; annoying because you have to sit there and wait for a fireball to go away before jumping back up. mysteriously you can't jump very high in the piranha area of the giant world--total inconsistency. (bug?) there are five piranhas to kill but, no five-secret sounds, so you may not think you're on the right track ("pluck???"). Once in the huge world, if you fall off the platform into the water, you're stuck with a very long walk to the first tiny->huge tube, and then clumsy shenanigans to get back to the flower. Exitting the course is tedious. In general you don't know what size you need to be until *after* you enter the level, at which point it's inconvenient to switch. (Same thing true for 11 and 14.)
13-2	0:09	The race invovles a not-obviously renewable resource (Koopa the Quick), although it's actually possible to reset him by switching to the tiny world and back. No convenient extra lives, but much fall-to-your-death peril for no apparent reason.
13-3	0:12
13-4	0:38	tedious to find all the secrets
13-6	0:07
13-5	0:15	"too much peril"--unfun, annoying camera; you go too way too much work just to get to this place, just to fall to your death right away
cloud world	0:16
14-1	0:01
14-2	0:08
14-3	0:08
14-4	0:15	"too much waiting"
14-5	0:02
14-6	0:05
15-4	0:23	died a lot trying other routes first
15-1	0:31	died a lot trying those routes some more
15-3	0:13	died a lot trying other routes first
15-2	0:07
15-5	0:04
15-6	0:04