Racing on twitch with Beyond Chaos

Having done so many practice runs and races that I am pretty sick of the speedcave I really need to put forth the following suggestion based on thorough experience of the scenario:

The race should really be until the first person presses the 3 buttons that lead to the second half.

Here are some reasons:
1 - After that point there is an immediate and RIDICULOUS jump in difficulty which makes it virtually impossible to proceed without grinding for levels.
2 - It takes less that 4 hours to get there. In my experience between 2 and 3. This is having explored 95% of the map (basically everywhere except places I got confused ny pathing and forgot.)
3 - There is basically no reason that not everyone will have ALL of the towns before the buttons. This will pretty much result in a tie unless someone somehow manages to find a town after the buttons (which in my experience (with many many seeds) is almost completely impossible without a grindey level spike or a ludicrously lucky set of abilities.)
4 - If you enforce exploration (which having to find all the towns does) the game takes longer and is less fun due to added tedium.

And probably some other stuff I could rhyme off if I weren't drunk and about to go to bed.

Any thoughts?