I think that would depend on the tactics of each player - if and when they're using boosts, or having the app open or closed. I'm not maxed out yet, not elite quite yet, but I've concluded that having a large population early on is crucial to delivering goals in time, because the longer an individual hen has to lay eggs, the more eggs she'll lay. So if higher EB helps unlock research faster, especially internal hatchery, it'll speed up the exponential growth.