Certainly not the only means no, but some are pretty obviously intended. I don't think anyone thinks a S3&K speedrunner is inexperienced enough to accidentally cause the wall skip by mistake... But yes, I agree at that point you've only got someone's word on whether it's meant to have happened or not. It was mentioned somewhere else that it would be disappointing to have to end a run deep into late game if you triggered a glitch/manip, accidentally or otherwise, but that's the nature of the game. You reset, you go again, same as any other game if trying to pla it straight like that. The problem there though is the number of possibilities because of S3&Ks brokenness!

Minor aside: are there any glitches that don't carry over from the console version to the Steam release within tbe Genesis/Negatives Classics collection, or is it an direct copy from the original software? If anything, I'm deeply intrigued and interested in the whole scenario. If anyone could direct me to somewhere that lists all the possible glitches that can happen, Timpz you mentioned there were a group of hackers who had commented on a lot of them somewhere?

Here is the most up to date public disassembly of the code that I know of: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sonicretro/skdisasm/master/sonic3k.asm

If you need to learn how to read the code itself I recommend this site: http://mrjester.hapisan.com/04_MC68/

As far as I know the steam and xboxlive etc releases are just emulators with the original code running, the original PC release from the 90s has the most changes I believe. Here's a list of glitches on Sonic Retro that is mostly written by me years ago but be aware it's far from complete: http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_3_%26_Knuckles_bug_list (also note that some of the things listed might not strictly be glitches by the proper definition)

it opens a slippery slope to allow hacks in runs. the rule should remain black and white. i understand your point however.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, in part because I don't remember WHERE I said it. Sonic 3 Complete would be it's own game under the Sonic Fan Games section of the site. There is nothing stopping anyone from doing that.