List format because I'm lazy:
1. Gaiden chapter requirements are stupid, and the chapters themselves are mostly meh. 24x and the one with Etzel were interesting though, because of their layout. 24x is a Fuuin 16x clone (towers) and Etzel's chapter has the only instance of indoor areas being masked until you open the door (or get close enough, in one case). Other than that, the Gaiden chapters just carry a short-lived "oh, neat" effect.
2. Generic units are interesting at first, because who hasn't wanted to throw some random units around in a Fire Emblem game (outside of Thracia)? Unfortunately, once the few chapters of novelty wears off, things just get horribly BORING. Their growths are awful, so giving them level ups is pretty much pointless. The only possible way to produce any real "fun" from using generic units is if you play on a harder setting (like Hard 5), but even then, there is no good reason to use any of them for more than meatwall duty. Take my advice, and NEVER try this playthrough (unless you plan to convert it into a Marth solo).
3. Test run one was done in less than a day, without much more than basic planning. It was rough in quite a few areas, but the overall time wasn't too bad for a first attempt: 1:08.07. The main idea of any run is to do a Marth solo (basically) with Rena making smart use of the Warp and Hammerne staff. A video of my results is here:
4. I did another test run the next day, knowing that I could shave off at least a few minutes from the previous attempt. Imagine my surprise when I achieved a final time of 32.01! I had written down some basic plans for each chapter, and included which ones to use Warp on. I also made sure to fix a mistake from last time, which was "ARGH, I didn't train Marth enough early on." By wasting some time to let Marth soak up most of the early game experience, he becomes more than capable of quickly completing chapters. In this case though, his defense was a bit poopy early on and so I had to have Jeigan help him out.
Anyway, the plans went well for the most part. Chapter 12 gave me some trouble though, because the idea was to kill the Warp Thief with someone that had a full inventory, send it to the convoy, and then have Rena fish it out and use it. Marth gets sent to the Boots chest, opens it, and spends a little time waiting for the two Mages to go up the left side of the map. Marth's resistance sucks, so dealing with them AND the other enemies is not a smart idea. It works out decently, because you get the chance to use a Vulnerary or two and/or the Boots while hiding in the closed room.
For those who may be curious, here is the rough document I wrote up:
P-1: Straightforward.
P-2: Kill everyone with Marth?
P-3: Kill everyone with Marth?
P-4: Kill everyone with Marth.
1: Kill everyone with Marth.
2: Marth left, people die.
3: Marth left, Oguma fort/mountain. No Warp.
4: Warp Marth and win. (6)
5: Use Marth and win. No Warp.
6: Warp Marth and win. (5)
7: Use Marth and win. No Warp.
8: Warp Marth and win. (4)
9: Warp Marth and win. (3)
10: Warp Marth and win. (2)
11: Warp Marth and win. (1)
12: Marth kills the Armor Knights, someone kills the Warp Thief, Warp Marth to Boots, and win. (1/6)
13: Warp Marth and win. (1/5)
14: Warp Marth and win. (1/4)
15: Warp Marth and win. (1/3)
16: Marth counter-kills the three Dragon Riders, Warp Marth to boss, and win. (1/2)
17: Move up-left and ambush the Warp Thief, Warp Marth to the boss, and win. (1/1/7)
18: Warp Marth to the boss (left-side) and kill him with a full inventory (to send the Rapier away). (1/1/6)
19: Warp Marth to Chiki and win. (1/1/5)
20: Warp Marth to village, recruit Lawrence, and win. (1/1/4)
21: Warp Marth, repair a Warp staff, and win. (7/1/3)
22: Warp Marth and win. (7/1/2)
23: Warp Marth and win. (7/1/1)
24: Warp Marth and win. (6/1/1)
24x: Warp Marth and win. (5/1/1)
25: Warp Marth, Warp Nagi, and win. (4/1)
At the end, I use Rena and Ellis to send Marth and Nagi (joins in 25 if you went to 24x) to Medeus. Nagi annihilates the Mamkute in front of him, and Marth uses the wimpy Falchion to kill Medeus. In this case, Marth was capable of dealing 17 damage per hit (Medeus has 60 HP here) with an 8x% hit rate and 8% critical. Luckily, Marth was fast enough to double, so all I had to do was keep restarting the chapter until one of the hits was a critical. Best case scenario is if you get a Marth capable of dealing 20 damage per hit, but I'm not sure if that is possible without the orb that negates any terrain bonus. Getting said orb would waste more time than it saves, by the way.
Gold is a bit of an issue throughout this run, because I like to have a decent load of general purpose swords for Marth to use AND a forged Rapier + forged Dragon Killer. I had Julian grab the first chest in Chapter 6 (money bag), since it was helpful and easy to get. Other than that, the only other gold I remember grabbing was in Chapter 1.
I'll probably do another run at some point, with some more tweaks. At the very least, I'll look at what I ended the game with this time and drop the excess. Combine that with better levels for Marth early on, and I can see sub-30 minutes happening.
Finally, here is a video of my second run results: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr-ukF5FSn4
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