Regarding (1), I think the parent still has a point. Too many choices can be stressful to the user.

How do you expect users to interact or choose between "7 minute version" and "9 minute version"? Are they expected to keep going up the layers one-by-one until the full version is reached? Are they expected to intuitively know which one to pick right away?

Too many possible choices also delegates the responsibility of picking the number of layers to the writer, which can be an additional stress.

If possible, I'd try to figure out the most common use cases. The interactions and thought processes of users should be intuitive and dead simple to describe. Other than, loving the idea! Keep it up. :)