I'm considering adding an ODE category for modded consoles that use an ODE (optical drive emulation) board. These boards only really affect CD loading times, so it's not at all fair to compare such runs to all-original hardware. I could also lump this together with emulator runs, since they both will (probably) have faster than normal loading times, and both kind of constitute "unofficial hardware" runs.

Does anyone have strong feelings on this?

No strong feelings one way or the other, I think lumping them with emulator would be fine though.

I did some testing, and there is zero difference in loading time between my Saturn with the Fenrir ODE, and loading times before when it still had a disc drive. I suspect it will be the same for other ODEs too.