blocks are fast, this is one of fastest [if not the fastest] coins running
According to everything I've read the target block time is supposed to be 40 seconds, according to the pool stats that I've checked the average block time is more like 13.5 seconds...

What is the actual target time?
You are absolutely correct, excl has gone into overdrive lol. Thank you for pointing this out, if you check earlier in this thread you will see a fork has already been suggested and discussed to address some issues including the blocktime, but i had not realized it had sped up to this extend, had not checked it for a while myself, so thanks for pointing this out. I suppose this makes the implementation of the previously discussed fork more crucial, I have contacted kingscrown about this issue and I am assured that this will be corrected very soon.