Yeah it was!
I get what you mean, but honestly I think differently. Sure, space saving perks can be counterintuitive because sometimes you need the cups or garbage cans anyway, but I don't think you're able to get the maximum multiplier for the first 2 parties without at least the beer cup perk. Not only do space saving perks allow you to not use extra cups/cans if you don't need to/want to, but they also give you more flexibility to put the cups/cans in random places if you do need to place them in order to fulfill someone's needs. So now if you need 5 cups, you're not locked into placing those cups next to beers; if you have an extra space in a random corner, you can just put the cup there! This can be helpful in certain situations beyond just avoiding taking up spaces.
I assume your strategy is to go for the 50 happiness bonus multiplier perk as early as possible? My feeling was that, especially on the early parties, this wouldn't be able to compensate for the higher multiplier you can get using the cups perk, however I don't think I've ever tested so I'm not sure. If you could get 7 DIKs to 50+ happiness by the end of Episode 9 that would be equal to .7 extra multiplier which is equivalent to 3 fulfilled needs. So theoretically you could miss out on 3 needs and still end up with a very similar multiplier. But can you get 7 DIKs up to 50% happiness while missing 3 needs? I don't know. Regardless, I still think other than that perk, the cups and trash cans perks are worth it.
I used cheats on my full playthrough so I can get the activities I want without having to worry about money, so my totals might not be an accurate comparison, and for some reason I picked Easy to Please instead of Multiplier Madness for the last perk, which I would probably switch looking back on it. But I had 122,705 on the Halloween Party (7.75x multiplier), 115,855 on the Thanksgiving Party (7.25x multiplier), and 97,233 on the Christmas Party (6.5x) for a total of 335,793. I may try a playthrough where I use the Multiplier Madness perk from the beginning to compare totals.