Yeah, I rescued Paz first in one of my first runs on the PS4 version. Its so trivial, but I was super impressed with the mere fact that I was allowed to "sequence break" the series' normal linearity if I already knew were to go/was skilled enough to do it.
I love MGS3, but I don't like replaying it too often cause of stuff like camo index, yeah. It makes sense for the era the game takes place in, but I really do miss the soliton radar in that game. I liked my pointy cones of vision.
If there's one gripe I still have about GZ, its that the enemy vision can be /too/ good at times. Sometimes I'll be crawling/crouching, pop reflex and see that I got spotted by a super tiny smidgeon or gap that its impossible for me to do anything about. :'(