The Simpsons: Hit and Run... Continued?

I know I put down the game about three years ago with a rant about how unforgiving the time limits are and how much they drag down an otherwise good game.  However, I decided to fire up the game and play a bit of it earlier, and ended up getting farther.  Specifically, I completed Marge's missions and I'm partway through Apu's missions now.  I've always said that not playing a game for a bit and then coming back to it helps me get through parts that I was having trouble with, I guess this is yet another example of that.

The time limits are still ridiculous.  The game gave me about 13 seconds to get to Springfield Elementary from about 12.5 seconds away at one point.  The game also gave me 2 minutes to track down and successfully ram into a rogue hover car with sufficient enough force, repeatedly enough to destroy it, during which time it drives off into the sunset and starts teleporting around.  Out of desire to make some money, I did one of the races run by Fat Tony's mafia guys, but they're terrible.  You'll never successfully complete one of them the first time you try, because you don't know the course layout, there's traffic everywhere, the radar is shit, and your only directions are green arrows on the road that get obscured by the traffic that's everywhere.

I'm still critical of the game.  Although, underneath a pile of shit lies a really good core.  The driving controls are great, it's fun smashing through stuff, the variety of unlockable vehicles is quite large and ties in well to the show, and even the costumes are neat.  I love all the little references dotted about.  Their presence shows they really wanted to make the game be a game that fans of The Simpsons would like.  It's a shame that they had to go and cover up good core gameplay and level design with unreasonable time limits and a terrible navigation system.

I guess my inner completionist won't let me stop playing the game before at least finishing the story.