Alright. Everything you said makes sense to me, and I agree with basically everything you said, so I think I probably should've worded my post in a different manner. I also didn't notice the category already exists, but I was voicing my opinion on why I think it should exist, since previously in the thread, you had mentioned being open to having your mind changed on the matter - "An argument can be made for glitchless". That was the topic I was trying to contribute to, and that's why I saw reason to post. But I really do appreciate the feedback, so I'm glad you put in the time to make these clarifications.

I mean if you think it's worth correcting my perspective, I'd appreciate it. I'll put more effort into figuring out if there's a reason to post next time I think about contributing to discussion.

My apologies

I'm brand new here and first post (I'm mostly just an occasional spectator of streams and events), but I wanted to give my perspective on the matter. I think I understand both sides of the argument, and my stance on the matter is that glitchless makes perfect sense as its own category. Obviously, the entertainment value of one category vs another is mostly subjective, so I'm not going to comment on the merits of glitchless any% vs any%, but here's why I think glitchless is, by itself, deserving of its own category:

Getting a faster time in any game on any% has solely to do with cutting out as much as possible between the official starting state of the run to the official ending state of the run, abiding by community determined game-specific rules. I believe the primary contributing aspects to getting the fastest times (cutting the most time out between the start and end states) in this context should rest more heavily on the individual more so than it does on the strategy. I don't say this to say that strategy isn't a primary contributing aspect. In fact, I'd argue that strategy often ousts the individual. I just feel that a run is more impressive, the more opportunities are presented to show off the individual's skill - mechanical or otherwise.

To this end, I would then argue that as glitches are discovered (which I admit is a very interesting aspect to the competitive nature of any% runs), the opportunities for the showcasing of individual skill gets marginalized in comparison to glitch execution. Now maybe you'll then argue that glitch execution is part of individual skill, and I would agree with you. But would you argue that there's more skill presented in a skip to ending credits glitch or through the endurance of skill testing gameplay under the scrutiny of potential mistakes within a large single sitting? I think most rational people would answer the latter, unless maybe the skip glitch is some convoluted execution like some SMW memory glitch or what not, which I personally think is more novelty than anything else.

In that regard, the more of the run time is determined by glitches, the more gameplay skill and even gameplay strategy is thrown away in favor of glitch execution skill. Maybe a game like DXMD really can't get much more refined without glitches. I'm not trying to make any argument against that, but I do believe that there are aspects of a glitchless run of DXMD that caters to not only mechanical skill and path planning, but also allows for resource management that glitches seem to make obsolete. Small choices like not using energy to dash even if you have a full bar, due to the nature of energy regen and dash cost for a particular segment limits the maximum dash use within that segment anyway, have more chances to matter. Strategy that involve taking much longer in non-obvious segments for resource gathering and/or non-traditional praxis spending to save maybe a few seconds in the long run is the type of competitive speedrun environment I find more compelling, and more opportunities for failure are then presented, therefore more opportunities for individual skill. And glitches pretty much pushes a lot of that aside. Or at least this is how I feel.

That being said, I do appreciate the skill and risks that the current OOB glitches present to the DXMD runs. I'm just writing in definitive support for official glitchless categorization. If no one runs it, then no one runs it I guess, but I think more people would if it were widely accepted as a major category.

Sorry for saying very little with so much text. I have trouble being concise and condensing my thoughts. I feel like I'm still not touching on the points in my mind.