Bunch of sloths the lot of ya!

Does anyone ever use the Hustle exploration activity? Reading it, I can't imagine that it hardly ever comes up in most games since Exploration is often loosely narrated and the vast majority of encounters are not time sensitive. Even when they are time sensitive, Hustle still might not matter unless the whole party is using the Hustle activity (depending on the context of the scenario). I've found that--especially in the math-tight 2nd Edition of the game--most players are even more loath to split the party than previous.

In fact, most players and GMs (that I've seen) totally gloss over the specifics of timing to the extent that distinctions between moving at half speed or full speed are effectively meaningless regardless of what Exploration activities are being used.

So, have you ever used it? Have you ever even seen it be used? Under what situations might you consider using it over, well, literally anything else?

Never used but has made me wonder whether there is cause to try and make some kind of encounter / challenge where hustling would give a benefit. But that would also need to be apparent to the players...

Never used it, but I admit I'love it for low level/magic campaigns.

A time limit is also always spicy because it forces players into making choices.

Yes & no.
Yes, in that players Hustle, but ultimately it makes little difference since the adventures are padded for time even if the narrative makes doom sound imminent. Hustle does give players a sense of achievement which who am I to dispel? In a race w/ evil rivals, it did allow them to set up an ambush once rather than be the ones ambushed, so there's that though one might attribute that to excellent Survival rolls instead.

In a party where the elf monk has a speed of 50ft and the dwarf paladin 20ft, it might sometimes come up that not everyone has to hustle..

But yeah, time-sensitive exploration mode is super rare. I've seen it come up a few times in PFS though, but then it was handled weirdly, because you were using exploration mode for long-distance overland travel, and yet expected to be Searching (i.e. moving at half speed) to spot some hazard, while even at full speed the scenario was hard to do without buying horses.

I’m wondering if it will come up in my 2E Runelords conversion where there is a flooding section

I wondered if it would come up during a time limited part of book 4 of skull and shackles. But there is a 5 round countdown which is only 5 minutes. Hustle seems intended for hour long chunks ?

You don't need to be faster than the bear. Just your buddy.
"That dwarf paladin was a swell bloke. Just couldn't run to save his life."

You don't need to be faster than the bear. Just your buddy.

"That dwarf paladin was a swell bloke. Just couldn't run to save his life."

"Everybody, Quickly! Get your straws out and enter the monk's bag of holding!"

Bah. I was hoping for a new ancestry.