Glad it's interesting! Shorter vids are usually my goal as well. In the case of "Storm Warnings," with the repeated instrumental, the original song only ran 2:30 and it was juuuuuust a bit short for what I needed. And with "Don't Let It Bring You Down," even with the repeated closing piano segment, either the change in speed alone or an excised verse (can't remember if I cut anything out) still made the vid 30 seconds shorter than the original recording.

An interesting exception to the length rule is -- well, was -- Club Vivid vids for Vividcon, when VJ absolutedestiny requested that people use complete songs because it helped keep people dancing, rather than two minutes of one song followed by a minute and a half of another, etc.