In other words, PoW doesn't favor a P2P network at all
Bingo. The ultimate conclusion is PoW becomes centralized. Which is what I've been predicting since roughly late 2013 and early 2014. But the selfish mining paper was what really brought it into more focus for me. Then it became clear that propagation, unequal hashrate distribution, and thus relative orphan rate are a critical factor causing centralization.