first, thank you Ony for organizing this in our a absence, I belive is worth discussion for the future of the leaderboards as you mention.

On the topic B, I belive it should be allowed. My point: Why is such a bad thing to begin with? Only real benefict is looking for a better Step count, wich could potentially benefict the route and the times. By cutting possible progress, we also cut the posibility of new WRs, new ideas,

Let's say, tomorrow someone discover, for example, a way to teleport to the disc 4 in the first 5 minutes in the game by exploiding something in-game on a previous save, as long as he starts the timer on new game, I don't see why would be a bad thing. Most likely all the runs would migrate to a hypothetical new category called "no teleport" and leave the any% to that new trick. Why ban an activity that could potentially save so much time and revitalize the leaderboard? (If you think that would kill the game, take a second look at how dead this game has been in the past 9 months.)

If it's the disc change the main issue, it can be easly fixed by adding on the rules "You may start on disc 1", or "You can only swap discs when the game tells you so" or even "No FMV manipulation/corruption allowed"

Even if there is a big glitch involving this, such as the Emerald Weapon thing on FF7, is not even bad to my eyes. Serious speedrunning is all about getting the fastest times anyways. Categories exist to please the competition purposes anyways, am I right? If someone doesn't like any% on FF7, No slots is the solution, why can't be the same way on FF8 in case something game breaking arises? It's not like No slots is a secondary thing (in fact, it's by far the most competitive!)

tl;dr: Don't BanHardware/Pre-run manipulation on FF8 is my vote.