I'm mostly responding to this comment in another thread https://www.speedrun.com/posts/e679s where the response to "why no emulation" was:

There is way too much room for cheating in emulators

I get what is being said here, but what is the point of moderation if not this. If there is no advantage, then why not allow it? It could be its own category, I feel like a lot of n64 games allow emulation in this way.

I guess I'm confused with the spirit of the ruling, as it seems exclusionary for kind of no reason. Especially as time moves forward the barrier to entry gets higher and higher if you only allow for original hardware.

I'd also like to submit a few runs if an EMU Category is created just like the Avalanche LBs.

i’m all for allowing emulation - srcom has an option for it anyway AND u can’t tell me wii u and switch aren’t an unfair advantage already being low-lag ports with save states. like fuck.

We ended up finally allowing emulators in Wave Race 64 last year. Part of the reasoning is that the Wii / Wii U / Switch ports are already using emulation, and in particular, the emulation they use is significantly worse than the best standalone emulators. I have never considered "easier to cheat" to be a disqualifier for emulator being allowed on a leaderboard, personally. You can cheat on any version of a game if you really wanted to. That's why we have moderation teams.