Emulator rules for the EarthBound speedrun (and therefore this speedrun) are based on speedrunslive's rules for emulation. bsnes, snes9x 1.53, snesgt (the one i use), and vc are all allowed. Zsnes and all other versions of snes9x are banned, pretty much for the reasons you already listed. Edit: But I guess it would do us well to specify that in the rules of the run as well so there's no confusion. ;p