Removed the stage select delay between Stages 1 & 4. Not only have I found the ammo to maintain a speedy run, but I even removed one lag and saved a frame rule. 24 frames delay inserted between Stages 4 & 3.
Items seemed to manipulate themselves before the miniboss, balancing out exactly with what I had before. The Ghost Fall segments needed some tweaking to get the ammo I need. After that, a change in strategy was needed, and the route had enough rigidity that I couldn't stop the game from producing a bunch of small ammo refills out of reach. Whatever the case, I got enough to reach the end, and the game still had to throw one more refill out of reach when it was no longer important. Somehow, I find this humorous.
I'm more in a mood to look at a stage I haven't optimized. Expect either a fixed Stage 3 or progress on Stage 5. I'm pretty sure anything I do in 4->5 can be readily transferred into 4->3->6->5, as I don't think the weapons in 3 and 6 give any benefit in 5. Probably just a matter of handling extra weapons in the swaps, hopefully 2 frames per swap isn't a major problem in the route.