You can't know that. Or more specifically you can't know what difference it could have made earlier.

The process of a coin getting any kind of following early on is one that depends a lot on bringing in miners. When there is zero else you can do with the coin (not even speculate on it much because the trading market hasn't developed), the potential audience is all miners.  And if most miners can't compete you naturally lose a big part of your potential early audience.

From the point of view of growing a community around a coin, 1000 or 5000 small miners is much better than a few big ones, especially big ones who are just going to move on to their next opportunity to rip through a new coin once they are done with this one.

Not that any of this is your responsibility though. It isn't your coin, and you owe the people trying to develop it nothing. You can and should do what you want and whatever makes you the most money.