This seems to be a difficult topic... I'll try to "put my mustard to it"
as we Germans say...
As an amateur playing a 7c. lute for a good two years now, I can say the
following:
I started playing the lute because of the beautifully balanced music I
love so much which gives me a peace of mind. It was never about
virtuosity. I loathe exercise pieces, of which there seem to be very few
anyway - so few that these French guys even copied Newsidler's exercises
for lack of own ideas. This gave me the impression that this wasn't a
big issue then and should therefore not be an issue now.
Most people today seem to perceive the faster notes as "just a
connection between harmonies", this leading to a somewhat mechanical
playing. But if you play scales they have no meaning.
Even Newsidler's 2nd and 3rd Rules are sweet little pieces on their own
made to not bore the player to death, and Mudarra's exercise fantasies
are obviously designed to make exercise fun.
If you want exercise, there are always very nice pieces that focus on
particular challenges. If I want scales, I go for a passamezzo by
Waissel, if I want to practise polyphony, I play Dall'Aquila.
Or anything light and flowing by Francesco for both.
Speed is not the issue anyway, at least for me - I find that most
lutenists play too fast. Isn't the Renaissance idea to find a speed
matching your own pulse, which is about 60 beats per second? There's no
tempo given because it is always a proportion of this pulse.
I found that if you take that as a rule, most pieces aren't that hard to
play technically and it is much easier to find the "Renaissance groove",
which is in my humble opinion the most important point in playing
Renaissance music.
If your hand hurts, you just might want to try some easier pieces for a
while. I found that after one hour the other ones go much easier.
I think Martin Shepherd made the most important point: playing the Lute
is mostly an exercise of the mind, not the body.
While the modern guitar is somewhat heavy handed like a modern piano and
requires some "muscle" to play, the Lute is so delicate that it's better
compared with the clavichord - not much physical effort, but infinite
delicacy.
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