I'm late to the discussion about length of time writing and recording an album, but for me, everything depends on the composers involved. Some composers can take a year to write something bland, and others need just a few days to produce a work of genius. Music history is littered with examples of masterpieces which were written in the white heat of inspiration (Mozart's diaries suggest some of his symphonies and piano concertoes were written in a matter of days). Regarding rock music, the first Liquid Tension Experiment was written in about a week, wasn't it? And they came up with music like Paradigm Shift and Universal Mind. The key for me is that LTE had Rudess and Petrucci composing, and it seems like music just effortlessly flows from them both. Neal Morse is similar. He and Stolt were the main composers of The Whirlwind (a brilliant album), and that was written in about a week. But they are both incredibly fecund composers, if fact they're infamous for how prolific they both are. They can do that kind of thing.
It's only my personal taste and opinion, but I just don't feel SoA has a composer capable of producing great music so swiftly. They are players firstly, not writers. I know that many here like or love the album, and that's great, but to me there's a laboured and pieced-together feel to most of it, with the only real inspiration coming on God of the Sun. Mike Portnoy is an incredibly talented drummer, but it has been his great fortune to cross paths with the likes of John Petrucci, Neal Morse, Kevin Moore and Jordan Rudess and have them write music for him to 'arrange'. An 'arranger' (the role he claims for himself) is only as good as the material being handed to him.
Long story short, great albums can be made in a few days (and have been), but only when the composers involved are first-rate. Just my opinion.