To the first part, the cutscenes are included in story mode as we can't skip them. Anything on console has the unfortunate disadvantage of being without a load remover. To the second part if you are doing runs on the 1-7 collection you would have to submit to the two different games. 5-7 is currently being reworked to better accommodate these new things

For this game it has always just followed more sense to do it in order, as there really isn't a time save. By doing it in order we just then have a route to follow a little better

Is there any way to get a new link? That one has expired