There was a post about this a few months ago but I think the issue needs to be raised again: the criteria for speed running this game are neither interesting nor indicative of a players skill. The westernize category is essentially a waiting game, and the "reach the end screen" category doesnt even mean you "beat" the game. It means that players just play a country at war and annex themselves or, as the meta has shifted recently, just quit the game.

Honestly I love Victoria 2 for its sandboxy quality; there is a high skill cap, there are so many cool things to do and no real set way to win. One idea that presented in the last thread was the unify germany category. This would be a superb addition, any person whose played the game for a bit can unify germany but it would be really cool to see people do it really efficiently. Other cool runs for vanilla could be form poland-lithuania from kracow or form india. Non nation formations could include reach 10,000 industry or 5000 prestige.

Also, If you follow the victoria 2 community at all, vanilla is not exactly hot. People are overwhelmingly playing the historical flavor mod, and there could be special categories for this mod as well.

(I dont know how difficult it is to add categories as a mod but id be happy to do so if i were a mod)