>>718939397
>Absolute Radiance and attempt beating it in the basement
That's really what it comes down to and what makes PoH pointless. By the time you reach Absolute Radiance, you should be able to beat every other boss almost mindlessly and it's not like you're rewarded for doing better on the other bosses (lifeblood not withstanding) since you get a bench right before PV+AR.
Since, even if you're killing the bosses almost as fast as possible, it'll still take around 40 minutes each time you do PoH, the only realistic way to approach it is to unlock AR, practice it on its own until you know it well enough to never lose, and then blast through PoH effortlessly.
There's no reason for it to be a gauntlet. It's just mindless tedium.