In Inferno, you can go to any of the levels (I took advantage of this for the ones I got stuck on). I beat all the levels honestly, so I can say it's not necessary to utilize the glitching to win.
People have been beating the transition time to death--but yea, it's pretty annoying. The animations look cool the first time around, but I'd ditch them in favor of starting the levels more quickly
Actually... I think the circle pieces make it more difficult in the higher levels where there are gaps--they make for more possible combinations, and I often end up moving them back and forth as I try to make the level work.
Spent like three hours getting all the Kongregate coins and beating the game$%^@#! It's pretty fun, but the X was easily hit instead of the Z and so I kept bombing myself, or my hand would somehow move up to A and S and I would get screwed. It was kind of fun to see the sauce-walking animation show up randomly when I was on ladders and marinara-less ground.