I actually do skip lessons. I do kanji lessons first to finish the level faster. The temptation to let them sit is, of course, still there, and I let them sit a lot. I think I definitely could have fallen into the same trap you did, with the 500 old vocab lessons sitting around, if not for The 0/0 Challenge which, while it gave me a whole other thing to stress about every level, it made it impossible to let lessons pile up (even if you reorder). The challenge is to post a screenshot of your queue with 0 reviews and 0 lessons once per level. I finished WK with a 42 level streak. Towards the beginning of it, it’s not too big a deal to miss one. Once it builds up though, I would do anything to preserve the streak. So you can’t let them build up. Mess up and your streak dies.
Also, no need to take that long on the lessons. Especially vocab ones. You’re gonna learn them with the SRS much more than the act of staring at it. You’ll get some of them wrong a few times, but eventually it’ll sink in. Take longer on kanji lessons to reduce time on level, but no shame in powering through vocab ones after a quick skim of the meaning.