Hurdle the water pit a viable option?

Yes it has been done. Yes it is faster. Usually done on last lap with full sprint. However is a bit more dangerous.

If you're moving quickly enough it's not bad. Kemboi always jumps off the last barrier in a major.

I could see it being much more dangerous in a crowd, but when your by yourself would it be considered more dangerous because of injury? After doing it, I feel it may be less dangerous because there could be less force when landing? Thoughts?

I wasn't really going fast (only ran around 10:50), but I did accelerate into each jump pretty easy to get my tempo up. My best was just over 9:30, but that was a few years back. What pace are you thinking would be good to implement hurdle over the water?

I think conventional wisdom is to step rather than hurdle as it reduces force and this reduces risk of injury. I was terrible on barriers but was are g in between and ran a decent steeple. Stopped on most barriers but would hurdle water for fun at end of races. Saves on time over pit but increases energy expended and risk of injury.

Back when I ran 9-oh-something in college, I always pushed off the barrier on the water jump. I was very right-legged then so I would stutter before accelerating to always take it on the right leg. I began messing with steeple again recently (now much older) and found that with wall drills (which we never did at my school) it was easy to get to where leading with either leg was no big deal. I now do the pit conventionally if leading R and hurdling if leading L. Just seems more efficient that way so I don't worry about it too much. In my opinion they are just about equivalent, if by hurdling it you avoid losing momentum. If you can take the water barrier conventionally with either leg, that's probably the best option of all, for anyone running slower than 9 flat. The diamond league guys can definitely hurdle it just as fast as conventional technique.