so the results are in:
not much competition for the light medal. Ikerous blew everyone out of the water. partly because he discovered the secret shortcut, although others that knew it were still unable to give serious competition.
no dark medal this time, but FF was very close to beating Ike. his dark paddle is even cheaper than Ike's shortcut, but Ike edges him out in other places, particularly his final catcher, and his trap-door-opener.
about that secret shortcut: at the last moment i indulged myself and put in a secret destructible wall. it's fun i guess, but i think the level is more technical without it. i'm very interested in how people would have gotten up to that gut without the secret path or the dark force. also snaking through to the upper left might then have been competitive... ah well, lessons learned...
speaking of which, sorry it was hard to tweak this level... stuff attached to the lowest floor was throwing off the timing of the gears, very nonintuitive. It was actually possible to have the 'dillo go all the way across the bottom, jumping both of the gaps and dodging all of the blades, but the timing changes so much as you tweak that it's really hard. I'll leave more gaps next time guys!
ok, so that's it. a big thanks to everybody who played!