I know kano has had a very small next to nothing tx fee block.
I don't recall if it was under 30 seconds for sure. I think the clock times were 9 or 17 seconds. He was close to a fee less block.
The smallest blocks we've found were
obviously those very shortly after another network block when the mempool was close to empty, but not empty.
So would you rather hit 5 blanks a month. Or all the blanks have a small amount of tx fees but you don't get the 5 you lose one to a guy that went shortcut method.
This logic is incorrect.
A pool will find, on average, 1 block every 100% diff of work they do.
It doesn't matter if they are empty blocks, full blocks, or half full.
Bitcoin is not a race to be first to find a block, it is a random event.
You aren't losing a block to someone else.
Every hash you do has the same chance of finding a block.
When you find any block, the 'race' is to make sure your block gets out to the bitcoin network as fast as possible, so others will start working on top of your block, and not find a another block based on the previous block, to replace your block and have an orphan race.