After 6 long years here's a new movie, 1 frame faster than published TAS (actually 3 frames, but two of them are faster boot by the emu)
A lot more work (weeks/months) remains and possibly more frames to be saved (starting from 5-3 onwards), but this is the proof you can expect a new TAS sometime later this year.
This could have not been possible without the invaluable assistance I got from Scumtron since weeks now.