No, not really. I've had a Mephisto that didn't get topped and didn't show pre flowers till 42-43 days. I can have 4 full nodes and 5th coming in or decent size if all is right by 18-21 days. Even if it takes a week to "heal", that's 5 weeks of veg time before it does it's thing. Most people veg photos 4/6 or 8 weeks based on the people that post their grows. 5 weeks on a topped auto doesn't seem all that behind a photo grow. Also, what facts do you have that are standard for photos? How can you say that the point of an auto is to be fatser than photos when there are no set values for photo vegging? Some people only veg 2 weeks and flip their photos. Guess that means all autos must go to flower in 13 days or less by your logic. The fact that you topped and stunted your autos doesn't mean every auto slows down by topping. You just need to get better.