There's a misconception I labored under for years, which other people may have fallen into.
When you attempt to skip a level in a Marathon 2 or Infinity scenario, you receive the message: "Before proceeding any further, you must take the oath of the vidmaster".
This message is a lie. (Bungie lying? The shock!)
To proceed further, the only thing you "must" do is click "OK". You didn't actually take the oath unless you actually took the oath; repeating the words yourself, with witnesses. Therefore, you're under actual no obligation to play on Total Carnage (and/or Death Wish).
Personally, I feel like while challenge is fun (or at least overcoming it is satisfying), variety is more fun and satisfying. While it is sad and insulting when enemies on lower settings practically just stand around waiting to be killed, there are too many good scenarios and games and other media to justify spending ten times as long on each one as you have to when challenge is the only benefit.
Of course, maybe you're already talking about playing on Easy. If so, I sympathize; FOUR BACK-TO-BACK VACUUM LEVELS? But you'd absolutely be missing quite a bit if you resorted to DTB, so even though I have no stake in the matter (I haven't been reading your posts, and I never even beat RED myself), I'd really rather you didn't.
