Busy Beaver champion programs are said to run for super-exponentially many steps. But nobody has actually run their simulators for that many steps. Instead, simulators can prove tape fast-forwarding rules. Basically, you look for repeating tape patterns. If you can prove the pattern is correct, then you can apply that transformation again if some tape circumstance shows up again.

For example (using run-length encoding), 1^n 0 1^m might become 1^(n-1) 0 1^(m+2)

When the rule is applied, the transformation is applied directly to the tape, generally by manipulating some count variables.

Now, how many machine steps does it take to apply this transformation? Well, TBH I'm not really sure. It seems kinda complicated, especially when the rules get more elaborate. If you are trying to run your simulator as fast as possible, you probably don't want to bother calculating it at all anyway, since you can always rerun the analysis at a more leisurely pace later.

So when I say that marks are "more practically important", I mean that marks are central to the operation of advanced simulators, whereas steps are a derived afterthought value.

Logically, the steps are more important, since they give you an easy method for solving the halting problem for the state/color class.

So far, the markiest programs are also the steppiest. My conjecture is that they will turn out to be different in infinitely many classes. If they were always the same, you would be able to get the logical primacy of steps just from working with marks. And that sounds too good to be true.