Racing on twitch with Beyond Chaos

I always check what they do by pulling out the mimic and seeing what new skills have shown up. Unless you find them immediately they are rarely worth going back for - primarily because you have to find the buttons all over again (ARGH! the first time I worked that out I decided to never go back to the ship again once I'd got past them) and redo the whole thing up until that point.

Espers are nice, but they are also of completely random usefulness and a lot of the time you spend half the race with minimal stat bonuses.

And the reasons I've done a whole bunch of seeds is to figure out what all the weird abilities do, which rooms are dead-ends, to test various ways of stacking parties, whether its worth returning to the airship, and so on. Every one I've done has made subsequent ones easier.

Also, Jack and I only skip the chests on Abyss's Narshe run. In Dessy's Narshe run it is almost universally useful to get most of them and weigh that against how far you are behind and ahead. In Abyss's there is rarely anything even remotely useful (or equipable) in the chests and there are infinitely more (and more dangerous) monster-in-a-boxes than in Dessy's. This makes it not only a waste of time to open them, but also grounds for a party-wipe (especially in single-character sections). Also you always run from most monsters in FF6 afte a certain point. Levels are basically unnecessary in this game (past about level 10) and there are sooooo many fights that I inevitably get bored of the fight system, just like in every other RPG.
I wouldn't do that in the speed cave because all the treasures are useful, and you actually need to level up to survive. That is the main difference between the two races: Narshe you run from everything because there's no reason not to. Speedcave you deal with everything you come across because not doing so is pretty deadly.

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If the problem is just that 4 hours is too long, maybe we should reduce the time limit to 3 hours.

I'm really not that concerned about the time limit. I am simply concerned that neither Jack nor I has gotten more than a few screens past the buttons on any run ever.