Why are they allowed for the extra levels, but not the main ones? And why are they allowed at all? They do allow for a faster speedrun, but it feels odd that we're allowed to use them considering how much setup is required.
If you ask me, opting to use !-blocks in each level, but not including the time it took to set them up as part of the run, would be this game's equivalent of a New Game Plus. If I started a new file and ran this game from that, then there'd be no way for me to use !-blocks unless I failed each mission multiple times during the run. But if I use an already completed file, I can use !-blocks without having the time taken to fail each mission included in the run. Maybe there should be separate categories? (Not sure if that's a good idea given how there are already a ton of categories).