SONIC IS DEAD! I shot him a lot, then he went asplodey and he DIED!
My official death count is 2418, though I'm pretty sure that includes all of my deaths in world 5 and a couple random visits to previous worlds. I think he took like 7 hours for me to beat, which isn't long by my standards.
I agree with everything you all just said except the hatred against the traps. I like the creativity of the traps, which are usually programmed for that instance, and I have seen almost no spike triggers. I also don't mind traps at end of easy segments, which Solgryn is usually good about. The only exceptions are the Mario dance and the blind jumps after the Gravitron and Kracko (the latter of which I thankfully avoided because I had watched a video beforehand). Those were all really dick, unfunny moves and bad level design.
Also, judging from the videos I've seen, the bosses tend to get better as the game goes on. I agree that the first four bosses were boring, but Sonic is awesome and I have high hopes for the rest of them.