Man, I gotta say I see it the other way. Skipping the smoke test to save 20 minutes is exactly how you end up standing in someone's driveway watching the fire truck pull up. In my experience that test catches cracked heat exchangers and blocked flues that look totally fine from the outside, and a house fire is not a lesson you want to learn twice. Your mileage may vary, but I'd rather be late to the next call than explain to a homeowner why their place smells like burnt drywall.

Would a candle that smells like a wet basement even be worth $7.50? Our system did the same thing last month over a $3 pack of gum, locked up right at the barcode scan and took 20 minutes to come back. It never crashes when a corporate guy is watching, just when you have 9 people breathing down your neck. That guy yelling at you like you wrote the code is the real kicker.