I'm working on a character that is going to have a LOT of things that use swift actions. However a couple of those things start out as a standard or move before getting quicker.
For a specific action that shortens the time needed to use as you go up in level, can you purposefully make it take longer? For example, let's use Inspired Courage. Starts as a standard, becomes a move, then becomes a swift. Would a bard capable of using Inspire Courage as a swift action be able to use it as a move action instead, freeing up his swift action for something else?
Note that using your swift action consumes your immediate action until the start of the next turn. That is a meaningful and intended limitation for some abilities.
Other way around, using your immediate action off your turn consumes your next turn's swift action.
Using an immediate action on your turn is the same as using a swift action and counts as your swift action for that turn. You cannot use another immediate action or a swift action until after your next turn if you have used an immediate action when it is not currently your turn (effectively, using an immediate action before your turn is equivalent to using your swift action for the coming turn). You also cannot use an immediate action if you are flat-footed.
Additionally, only swift actions cannot be downgraded in speed. You can spend a move action as a standard action to get two move-equivalent actions in a turn. Note that swift actions are not allowed mainly as a balancing tool as most swift actions if allowed to be spammed allow people to activate buffs far too often (e.g. Inquisitor and Warpriest), or sometimes intentionally limit a character to only being able to perform a rider action once per round (e.g. the Hurtful feat).
A move action allows you to move up to your speed or perform an action that takes a similar amount of time. See Table: Actions in Combat for other move actions.
You can take a move action in place of a standard action. If you move no actual distance in a round (commonly because you have swapped your move action for one or more equivalent actions), you can take one 5-foot step either before, during, or after the action.
Ok, so what I'm gathering is this:
If a specific action STARTS longer and then gets shorter, the way Inspire Courage does, then you can choose to take the longer time. But only in those cases. An action that starts as a swift action can only be used as a swift action.
You have to look at the ability in question. If the ability to use it as a shorter action uses the word can you get to choose from the allowed types of action. Just because bardic performances operate that way does not mean everything else does.
Off the top of my head, I cannot think of any other abilities that the type of action used is reduced at a higher level, but if there are look at the wording of the ability for how it operates as per RAW. I can easily see a GM allowing it in other circumstances, but that is going to be up to the individual GM.
Usually when this question comes up it becomes a discussion about how staggered and nauseated conditions treat actions as sacrosanct. If the rules don't explicitly state that one action can be swapped for another, then you can't.
Nauseated for example doesn't allow the use of any action other than a move action. The existence of staggered which explicitly calls out you can still use a swift action with your either/or action, implies that swift actions cannot be swapped for a move action.
All of this ultimately implies that you're limited to how much 'effort' you can put into actions during a combat round and not just the time they take. Remember, a swift action is identical to a free action except that it takes more 'effort', not more time.
How much effort you can put into a combat round is never stated anywhere so you can't really determine anything directly from that. Just that different action types are not meant to be swapped unless the rules explicitly state you can.
So from a RAW, MS is correct. So while you could use, say, swift alchemy as a move action instead of a swift action because it goes from move->swift->free, you can't use it as a standard action. Likewise, since a spring loaded wrist sheath is a swift action with no progression, you can't change it to a move or standard action instead.
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That being said from a GM standpoint I'd probably allow a swift action to take the place of a standard action, but not a move action.
I would just apply the "Is this dumb though?" sanity check like when a player tries to make a Simulacrum of a demi-god
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Once way to get two swift actions in a turn, albeit only once per day, is the corset of delicate moves. My stonelord paladin has one in case he is in defensive stance but urgently needs to move (ends stance), lay on hands on himself to heal damage and remove the fatigue from ending the stance (swift), then resume his stance in his new position (swift), all in the same round.