I would absolutely LOVE to speedrun this category. I'm not a huge fan of Any% because of there being no "retry" button and if you mess up, you're kinda stuck. But, I think the Queensword would make up for it. It sounds as if problem 1 would just make the run more exciting to finally be able to do. And problems 2 and 3 sound like things that may attract new runners. It's an easier category. Also, the only "safeties" I can think of are. Swimming to Avion's platforms, possibly holding onto Barba for a longer time since he has a sigil on his back and hand. And maybe holding onto Hydrus for a longer period of time (depending on what strat you use). Yes, these can still be advantage points, but just think about how much slack that the Queensword will make up. There are also three Mega Bonuses about this category.

1. Fun and easier category.
2. You can see the glamorous, beautiful white Agro.
3. A One-Cycle on Pelagia will be much easier.

I fully support this being an official category.

We won't know until next year but I would hope it's based on the original PS2 version.

Can I Time my speedrun with a stopwatch on my wrist watch since it is an external timer?

It depends on whether there are faster skips in the remake or not.

Yes, the world record holder is currently Shirapon. He's very talented at the game.

Maybe Gaius. The sword jump is a very hard jump and requires some luck along with practice.

Taking the leaderboards into consideration I would say Normal Any% since the leaderboard has more people.

I would say Hard Any% is harder but it really depends on the speed runner. Different people have different capabilities but in my opinion I would say Hard Any%. I would say in my opinion Cenobia (the fourteenth colossus) is the hardest to get an optimized time on unless you use the Kaze Jump since tower skip isn't very consistent. I would say Cenobia for Hard Mode as well.