Having watched JRB, despite the fact its significantly faster than FODA's mainly due to more accurate play I still think there is many errors. From what I remember about swimming the timing is hold for A for 18 frames pause one and then repeat endlessly, although at times its faster to hit A on every other frame if Mario is swimming a very short distance or is about to leave the water without the need to dive such as exiting the water on a sloped area. It would be great if there was a macro to do the swimming bit, as its anoyingly hard to do accurate swimming although its a little easier than B+K. As FODA mentioned the stylistic choices are too simalar and 120 star allows you to do different things as opposed to a 16 star. I think putting the camera in freecam may be of benifit because I'm sure time will more than be saved because of the lag that can be reduced, unless you specifically want to hex edit in previous stuff which is perfectly fine, providing its the fastest input available.
On a later note I have a few hassle free days ahead of me and I hope to get the new 16 star run finished by the weekend, there is a few noticable bits that are faster but the majority of the time saved comes from frame shaving throughout the game. The hardest part is having a enough new stuff to justify watching over the previous versions. I personally think there is just about enough new stuff.
Here is a mini trailer if anyones interested
http://files.filefront.com/traileravi/;6415240;;/fileinfo.html