Something I just discovered while playing around with what I called a 1.5 tick pulse, is that it can be input into a comparator while only occupying a single comparator at a time.
To put things in perspective, this single wire can generate over 1 trillion possible outcomes (2^40) each second, in survival minecraft. As far as I know these speeds haven't been reached before.
I'm still working on a receiver that can convert the continuous signal from serial analog 4 bits/tick, to parallel binary 16 bits per 400ms. Having a few problems with update bugs but i'm pretty sure it is possible to convert the full signal, i just have to reconfigure a little.
Thanks to
Munin925: Help with the converter from analog to binary
Taefler: Showing me a more simple design for a 1.5 tick pulse