This guy did it at ilvl 196 on an alt. HERE
There are people showing you can get 5-stars and completely AFK (like for 20 min). HERE
What prevents you from doing this now? The score is just to unlock layers 10-12, otherwise you can completely ignore it. If you’re happy exploring Layer 9 and taking a little longer to get your soul cinders (if you even care about that), then the score is totally meaningless to you. I suspect you will unlock layers by simply investing your Tower Knowledge in the Box of Many Things over time. Who cares if you couldn’t unlock a given layer in week 1?
Ignore the score (and its timer/empowerment/bonus objective elements) and Just have fun with it. The game play is unchanged, but it’s faster as there’s one less floor and if you die on the last boss its health does not reset. The fact that I can do this in 20-25 min instead of 40-45 min means I might do this just for fun, as I liked the game play loop, but I hated what a time-sink it was in 9.0 (completely avoided Twisting Corridors for that reason).