Hey. Maybe a week ago I found an exploit from Saints Row: The Third that helps save money and probably time as well in a run.
I mentioned this trick at SDA as well, but guess I will divulge some more info here. It's basically a simple menu glitch that allows you to purchase a shop item at the price of the above or below item. In other words, you can for example purchase Lv. 3 upgrade with the price of Lv. 2 upgrade - probably a lot cheaper - or Lv. 4 Upgrade with the price of Lv. 1 upgrade.
Unfortunately the gun shop in Saints Row: The Third is the only place I've found out where these menu glitches actually produce useful results. You can try to do the trick when customizing vehicles as well, but it doesn't work the same way. Also trying to buy skills from your phone for cheaper or earlier than normal with the trick softlocks the game, so that's not recommended either.
In Saints Row IV there are even more variations, but those too mostly just cause softlocks. You can try to purchase gun upgrades under the required price, but the game prevents the transaction and it's like nothing happens, so at the moment there are no useful variations of this exploit in SRIV.
Didn't test much in Saints Row 2, but the very different shop system there seems to lack this kind of loopholes... Yeah. I also have no idea about Saints Row 1 menus since I don't have it... I guess I'll post updates here if I happen to play more Saints Row any time soon and notice more exploits.
When I first saw you post this on SDA it looked like it could be quite useful for the run allowing you to get a fully upgraded pistol on the visit to the gun shop with Shaundi and letting you skip the second gun shop visit. Since then I have tested it a bit and found that you have to have the money for the upgrade you want even though it is not spent so the place we have always upgraded the pistol has to remain.
It does allow us to get the dual pistol upgrade when we get sprint upgrade and save time in the menu and during hitting the powder room so a decent 20secs or so.
