I don't plan on playing 200 hours of Oblivion again.

However I like to play for 8-10 hours a month.

Can anyone suggest a character build and play style that will allow me to enjoy the game and feel I'm making some sort of progress or much shorter play durations?

I'm thinking things like:

Setting all my major skills to things I use regularly, meaning I level up quicker?

Only doing side quests?

Only doing the main quest?

Role-playing as a hunter etc?

Some gameplay tips to allow me to enjoy the game in a shorter time.

Do you want to whack things or blow stuff up or shoot things from far away?

Well my last playthrough was Blade and Heavy Armor so a magic build might be a nice change...

Based on what you say, I'd focus on completing the Mages Guild as a goal. To speed things along, pretend that each guild hall has teleport pads so you can move easily and quickly among the different guild facilities (fast travel just to cities). Consider all the magic skills as majors with a couple caveats - alchemy and conjuration can level waayy fast if you use those skills alot. The problem here is that, since destruction and restoration level so slowly, it is easy to become weak in destruction and restoration if your other skills level quickly. A nice skill to substitute could be armorer - especially if you plan to use a weapon and/or any armor. Acrobatics could be okay as well if your mage is going to want to hop around to avoid damage or leap up to safe casting perches; acro is also easy to spam up quickly if you want. One tip if you want to balance out and control leveling magic skills is to craft weak training spells for each.

First suggestion I'd make is "don't level up quicker." You'll just end up frustrated, with a weak character.

I'll second the suggestion to do the Mages Guild quest line. Since everything scales to your character anyway, this quest line looks virtually the same at any level. Make sure your character at least has Alteration and Destruction as major skills, since you need to be able to cast a couple of Apprentice-level Alteration spells (or be good at picking locks and holding your breath.)

Mages with an Alchemy major can brew some respectable potions from day one; the most important being 'restore health' and 'shield'. Use potions during combat. Use spells before combat (shield, conjure) and after combat (restore health). Poisons are the mage's equivalent of a battle axe. They make a simple silver dagger a life saving weapon.

If the time spent on 'prepping' will interfere with 'getting-it-on'. consider simply lowering the difficulty slider to a level where your character can be effective even with minimal prep time. The slider is there to allow you to play the game your way. Remember, it's a single player game. You are not cheating; merely being creative.