The split doesn't look terrible, hopefully it won't hurt how they grow. I've had similar things happen several times, and imediately wrapped them in duck tape and they always grew back together.
I always remove the lower/inner bud sites, the leaves won't hurt anything, and will keep feeding the plant until they die off. The bud sites are just gonna turn into popcorn nugs and suck energy from the rest of the plant IMHO. There were a couple plants that I topped this last run and wished I had trimmed the lower stuff out afterwards. The colas on the plants are nice and long, but the bottom half of the cola is much more airy then the top. Some people don't believe in trimming anything, I try to keep a balanced view of pruning and use it to make the plants grow how I want them to.