the only thing that any publicly available hacks do is give you infinite coins (well, technically only about 1.1 million), a bunch of (mostly not very good) costumes and premium for free. coins are very easy to come by, usually you end any given speedrun attempt with more coins than you started with, but if you really needed to grind for coins the best method gives something like 500-600 coins per minute of real time depending on your loads (without premium, with premium it's around 600-700/min). as for premium, I have already explained in this news post (and again in this one) that the load removed timing method (LRT) that we use for the leaderboards is designed so that there is no difference between playing with premium and playing without it. for these reasons, the infinite coin mod is allowed.
it makes me extremely happy that a route that I created over 5 years ago at this point is actually getting used without me saying anything about it
welcome to the wonderful world of dan the man speedrunning! for a first run this is definitely one of the better ones I've seen, since despite the couple deaths in 8-4-2 and the fact that you're using dan instead of custom, you seem to know a lot of little things that most new runners don't (one major example that comes to mind is that you both used weapons on the top of king resistance's head to damage him during attacks, and then when that wasn't possible you hit his head to make him overheat faster). the later levels (particularly the fights) could do with some review, I strongly recommend the any% speedrun route video that I posted in the guides tab for that. hope to see you try for an even better time sometime soon :))
the only two versions you should be considering are whatever the latest update is (because it's convenient to be up to date) or 1.1.5 (it is the only version of the game where you have weapon and health carrying as a feature and the expanded costume inventory, plus if you're willing to go for a frame perfect trick 30 minutes into the run you can also do elevator escape allowing you to skip 8-4-2;3 fight). if you play on old versions you have to keep your internet off though otherwise you'll get sent back to the main menu and a popup that you can't get rid of will stop you from playing unless you update, as a result if you want to use statues in a run on an old version you are required to have premium on that save file
I really like what you tried in 8-2-2 sa3 and tested it out myself - it's only possible if you do a perfectly timed high kick cancel and the timing is very strict (took 5 times to get it) so yeah it is doable but I think in future in the off chance you get a carlgustav from the statue you probably shouldn't try since it's very punishing to miss with very little reward if you do get it

France