Well, speeding up is possible by frameskip, as according about my findings in TPT code, rendering takes almost whole time of frame (try to turn off all effects and leave only "basic" view to see it), where logic (simulation) is only small fraction of it, so with frameskip 2x, game would do logic twice, but render only once.
Also don't tell people something is "impossible" when there are mods that incorporate "impossible" things (like moving solids, I think jacob or tommig or someone else did it with good framerate, this was in one of more advanced mods unfortunately without Linux version).
//edit: And seriously - alpha blending, blurring, glow and other effects without OGL and shaders? Seriously?