I haven't been around in a while as well but, I was around when the Glitchless category was made me and another guy who doesn't run anymore more or less kind of just through together the run and it kind of just stuck.

Since the rules do state that item boosts / clips / OOBs count as glitches I don't see why the above would not be allowed. I was apprehensive at first to the reload in Closet to get the drawer to come back after getting the star. But since the rules don't say anything about reloading or the above don't really fall into any of the categories in the rules more just an oversight of the developers or as you say exploits.

Any version of 3.0 is fine to submit in the 3.0 category, you are all good! Enhanced Edition is the name for the 3.0 Version.

I added patches of the game that I have so that people can use different versions and so that new people can have access to them.

SkinnyJoe64 found that you can not only skip chapter 0 but all chapters in between the last checkpoint. Is this allowed in a run or is there a rule against doing this.

I completely agree with this and I think it would bring new life into the community.