If you take the meme at face value, sure. I'm sure they have to validate some runs, I'm also pretty sure they don't extend that policy to 2500 spots down the list.
Most runs in general do not get scrutinized unless something about the submission is suspicious in itself. The community is very tight knit and there is nothing to gain from being on the leaderboard but clout.
Pretty much yeah, the runner still has to plan his two weeks pretty much to the minute and a whole lot of time save comes from optimizing menu navigation as time to evolve cars doesn't pass on the menus.
Hugo One has a novelty run of San Andreas (novelty meaning it's modded, e.g. Chaos Mod, Randomizer, and non-competitive because it's not an actual category) that's almost 70 hours long