I'm sorry, I'm not picking on you, but it sounds to me like you don't want ANY kind of mechanics, you basically want something akin to FATEs/hunts? I won't debate the drops. I don't see them as such a big deal, but I also don't see much point to them. But the part with the Warden. . . sure, he's not a boss or anything, but if not for the holding mechanic, what's the point of the hands? And what else does he have? An easy to dodge beam? No challenge at all.

And correction: SE never rewarded speed runs. You didn't get anything extra at all. I capped just like everyone else did, every time, and I didn't speed run once. Don't assume however that I did everything at an absolute crawl.