Welcome back. Year 13.It's been 12....long....years.
I've noticed the same. I've grown a large bunch of almost pure sativas out the back, and the ones that were topped a few times general sat at 5-7 fingers. The two that weren't topped grew 9 and a few 11 fingers on the higher nodes before flower, and then returned to 5 or less when flowering Initiated and sugar leaves became the norm.i have three plants growing (one Sativa, one indica and a hyird) i was experementing with "topping" or "mainlineing' or "dworving" my plants. The plats that i topped the most ( has 8 shoots) has five and seven pointed leaves, the plant that i only topped once (two shoots) has 7 and 9 points. All from feminized seeds from a seed bank in Denmark.