I was talking with my uncle a few years ago, who is a hunter and target shooter and collector of long experience. One of his buddies is a gun writer, and often my uncle has access to his demo guns. Uncle was talking about shooting one of the new T/C bolt actions, and he mentioned that he liked the rifle and found it very accurate, but that he would not recommend it because with the 60 degree bolt lift, and for whatever other reasons of it being a stiff new gun, he was unable to work the bolt with the gun shouldered. This from a guy who for many years shot high power matches with bolt guns, and who definitely knows bolt action technique.
It seems to me that a shorter bolt lift would be a valid design goal in a bolt action, but if the gun cocks on the bolt lift stroke, there is clearly a limit, and it's probably 60 degrees. And, having shot Swede Mausers, I'm not all that crazy about cocking on the forward stroke. It isn't anything like a problem, especially if you are stroking the bolt briskly so that the inertia of the gun is helping, but again there's probably a better way.
Cocking on the retract stroke would seem to me to be ideal. The lift stroke would only do primary extraction and unlocking the lugs. You could design a multi lug bolt with a 45 or even 30 degree bolt lift, which would keep the bolt handle well away from the scope and cut down on hand motion. As the bolt comes back, the cocking resistance would be countered by the shoulder. The forward stroke is just stripping the cartridge from the magazine, and then another short locking rotation.
It also seems that this approach would lend itself to a pretty straightforward fire control group. Use a hammer. There's no law that says that bolt actions need to be striker fired. Centerfire autoloaders get the job done just fine with a hammer.
Anyway, there you have Jubjub's rifle of the future, a bolt action AR.