Spent some time testing and I'm not quite sure what to make of it just yet. The clip by itself is slower (powerups take way too much time), so it would have to come down to how much time the fire flower saves in 8-4. It could go either way, honestly.
User movie #67790618666319397
I did make this, though. It's an unoptimized testrun up to the world 4 warp. Currently 149 frames behind the submission, though there's definitely room to optimize (and maybe also to figure out if the walljump in 1-1 underground is possible in the same place as it is in the submission, I couldn't get it but also didn't really spend too much time trying). I might take this to the very end to see if it's at least as close as I think it'll be, but it's also free for someone else to take, optimize, and potentially have #234 on the workbench.