NO ONE CAN SAVE YOU FROM YOURSELF PILGRIM, YOU ARE DOOMED!!!!
Seriously though, I understand what Pilgrim is getting at and I don't think for the most part it's too big a deal. It's just important for everyone to remember that there are a couple things that can happen during the course of a long cutscene: your character can undergo serious personal changes that might affect their behavior in the in-game world, and events in the in-game world can get ahead of you. Neither of these reasons is cause to whip through every cutscene at lightning speed, but they are useful to keep in mind.
I thought maybe a few examples from my own experiences with a similar system in another game might be a little helpful.
Example 1! I once had an asynchronous scene (I'll just call it a cutscene going ahead for simplicity) with a single friend, which involved my character and hers being out on a boat cruising around through the bay just for fun and leisure. This cutscene probably puttered along for a couple weeks or so. There was really no reason not to putter along -- I seldom had a chance to encounter her character in-game so there was no weird overlap and disconnect between what we were doing in the cutscene and what we might have been roleplaying about in-game, and even if there had been, the content of the cutscene was so low-intensity that it wouldn't have mattered very much anyway. No time-sensitive plotlines or other people were involved, no important information was being exchanged, and neither of our characters were interacting in some kind of dramatically life-changing way. A two-week-long scene to cover a couple hours' worth of game-world time was fine and rewarding.
Example 2! Another cutscene with a single friend, but this one was very high-intensity in terms of personal drama and character development. It took place after a slightly traumatic incident in-game, when both of us had needed to log off for the night but we still wanted to explore what happened between our two characters immediately afterwards. This cutscene involved real, serious exploration of the relationship between our two characters and the potential exchange of important personal information, and because of this I actually refrained from logging into the game for two days until the cutscene was finished -- whatever happened in the cutscene was going to be very important not just to how my character related to my friend's character, but would also have affected her outlook, demeanor, and actions in general. For that reason -- because we both felt our characters were likely to be changed by the cutscene in some way, and because that would necesarily affect how we roleplayed them in-game -- we tried to move the cutscene along at a relatively quick pace and not interact with the in-game world until we knew what the outcome of the scene was.
Example 3! This cutscene involved a few different people, and was done for the purposes of exchanging plot-relevant information in advance of an event. While we didn't know exactly what would happen in the event it seemed important to have our characters collectively work out some plans together and also just do some personally meaningful things in advance of what was a somewhat dangerous advance in the plotline. We all had different play schedules and time limitations and it could be slow even to get us all posting in the cutscene, but we attempted to schedule it far enough in advance that we felt we could finish our time-sensitive roleplay before the event. As it turned out we ran up right against the event because apparently we still couldn't entirely get our act together! We could have handwaved it and OOCly finished exchanging information, or tried to wrap up some of the more personal parts after the event. But that would have been very awkward and we all wanted to keep everything fully IC, so we just created an "interruption" that ended the cutscene early. We'd given ourselves enough time to roleplay out most of what we felt was really necessary to proceed and we didn't want be lapped by the actual event, and it all worked out decently well if not perfectly.
I think part of the difference in attitudes towards cutscenes/asynchronous RP is just a difference in mindset between MUSH culture and MUD culture. MUSH culture relies a lot more on OOC planning and consensus among players and I think people are generally a lot more accepting of handwaving on the timing of things; reality in a MUSH is more planned and socially constructed through (OOC) consensus. MUD culture tends to be a lot more uncoordinated and in-the-moment, and generally it's expected that "reality" is what's happening in-game, right now, in-character and not entirely within any given person's control. That does introduce some challenges into incorporating a system for asynchronous roleplay into a fundamentally MUD-type environment, where events on the ground can move quickly in an unplanned way and make asynchronous roleplay "outdated". But we thought it was worthwhile to try it, because there are real benefits involved for players, and because cutscenes genuinely can enhance in-game RP if used with thought and intention.
Essentially, cutscenes should be a supplement to in-game roleplay in Avaria, but not a replacement for it. If you can be in-game and roleplay out a scene in real time with someone, please do! Cutscenes alternately are great for when you really can't be in-game with another character, or if you want to play out a little story that doesn't affect in-game events or behaviors much, or if there's a scene you want to explore more fully but for whatever reason you don't have time to do that in the moment. They're also a good place to exchange information with characters you can't meet up with in a timely manner -- but they should make this exchange more timely rather than less so. We're definitely not saying that cutscenes need to take place in real time and always move along quickly and be concluded shortly, because that is really not necessarily the case at all. It's just helpful once again to keep those two points in mind that I made at the beginning of this extremely long-winded post: during a cutscene your character can undergo serious personal changes that might affect their behavior in the in-game world, and events in the in-game world can get ahead of you. Plan and roleplay accordingly!