Would it then be called a "final persistence mode"?

For sure weakens wizard mode but they're already allowing some modes to be played outside of gameplay so I guess it's the evolution. (I've never used the LITZ cheat and never done it on GZ either)

What I'm really interested in is how much it works against longevity. We've all heard W/B stopped game continues because people would move on from a machine. We also read on pinside a strange amount of posts saying people are "done" with a machine once they "beat" it; so let's see how it goes.
Longevity is sort of a strange subject anyway as people are selling games they buy right away pretty frequently.

Them you're a good candidate. Some kids I knowm beat videa games in 1 night and never care aboot them again; should be enlightening.

Def has some "participation trophy " aspects though. Of course home play you could just take the glass of anyway.

It keeps track of your time, so the goal is to get to the wizard mode as quickly as possible across multiple tries. To me, it's a very intriguing and good-sounding idea.

It's no secret that the point of the challenge mode is that they don't have to worry about spending too much development time on a mode only a small percentage will get to play. This innovation accomplishes something similar.

Speedrun:
"From your very first plunge, it starts counting up in thousands of a second and it keeps counting up until you beat Knull. If you’re logged in, it counts up across games. Eventually, when you do beat Knull because you’ve leveled up and it’s gotten easier for you, you’re now at level 30, level 40, level 50, you can beat Knull and then it will tell you how long it took you to beat Knull. Then that’s your speed run time. Then you can try and beat that. You can try and beat your speed run that you did before once again."

I can imagine this adding replay value and entertainment. It seems like a worthy idea to experiment with, at least.