For the time-complexity of the verifier to grow only linearly with O(log1/ε), we need also to assume the complexity of the reduction fm is O(|C|γ) for a fixed γ, regardless of m, which I admit is quite optimistic. If the time-complexity of the reduction fm is doubly exponential in m, the (upper bound of the) time-complexity of the verifier will be exponential in 1/ε, even with the stronger version of Reduction-Regularity.
For the time-complexity of the verifier to grow only linearly with O(log1/ε), we need also to assume the complexity of the reduction fm is O(|C|γ) for a fixed γ, regardless of m, which I admit is quite optimistic. If the time-complexity of the reduction fm is doubly exponential in m, the (upper bound of the) time-complexity of the verifier will be exponential in 1/ε, even with the stronger version of Reduction-Regularity.
Correcting myself: “doubly” just added above.