This was an interesting experiment I did to see whether it would actually be faster to complete some levels in a full-game speedrun by instead destroying satellite dishes. Well, the results are in.

Assuming nearly everything goes perfect, this would actually save almost 3 seconds over the current full-game path! The bonus round has been included for those who would like to compare. The bad news is it's next to impossible to actually save that time:

1. Getting perfect execution is an absolute nightmare between destroying the sludge pilot with the drill and getting good RNG/execution through the next 3 sludge pilots. There is very little room for error if you want to get past seamlessly. With better luck at 0:18, I could get a 28 but I will not be trying for such an unwieldy goal.
2. You need to destroy the satellite dish with one HP remaining to lose the bonus round as fast as possible.
3. You also need good RNG on the bonus round to lose as fast as possible. Incurring a hit from the top or bottom happens way faster than from the left or right.

All in all, definitely not worth going for in an RTA run, but I'm almost certain this would be a faster route for the TAS should someone start working on improving that.