I'd say no. Not everyone will have access to them (personally, I've only got two despite playing this game nigh-constantly before I picked it up for speedrunning, just because of the way I tend to play survival mode), and a couple would make a pretty big difference for speedrun purposes.
Can you even enable them in Story Mode anyway? I'd check but work.
Pretty Sure you can only allow badges for use in survival mode so this question is null lol.
Which is amusing, because the only badges I have, I have because I started running this game, and grinding out the movement and the outdoors-time in story mode pushed me over the top for those badges!
Yeah I noticed that we can't use badges in challenges. But, who knows, maybe one day there will be a category for survival mode.
Several runs in the Death% Category are being reviewed to try and tighten them up. Several runs have also had times adjusted due to timers starting too late, stopping too early, or even too late.
If you have any questions, please contact me, Lohaan. via my DMs and I will be happy to answer any q