this deck hurts my soul. Could this deck be any faster? 0.0"

yeah, add in Candelabra of Tawnos, Imperial Seal and Grim Tutor and pull some of the option win conditions.

Although my version of a Kess storm deck looks a bit different I like the deck. I would cut Evasive Action (eg for the strictly better Mana Leak/Dispel/Negate/..).

Some subjective thoughts on the deck: I would get rid of Doubling Cube which is quite bad and doesn't achieve anything until you have hit 8 mana, which should be sufficient to go off either way. Staff of Domination is only decent as an infinite mana outlet, Power Artifact a dead card most of the time. There are a ton of cards that hurt quite badly off of Ad Nauseam. Do you need that many payoff/engine cards like Mind over Matter + Paradox Engine and Tendrils? Does Kess specifically need both Yawgmoth's Will and Past in Flames(maybe cut PiF?)? I think you could cut some slack here or elsewhere to bring down the cmc of the deck a little more allthewhile making the deck more consistent. I think not being able to wipe the board (sans overloaded Rift) is a huge oversight no matter what sort of meta/decks you are facing.