I would not have trimmed leaves from a plant that small. There’s dimly no reason to. I would transplant as soon as possible. That plant must be root bound by now, and limited space for roots to stretch will slow growth significantly.
I don't disagree with what your saying, but I wanted to grow one in a cup, but I used a soda bottle with a wick in it. Yes it will be small, that was my intended purpose. But, I want to see for myself what the buds will do.
Leaves continued to produce once the fan leaves were trimmed off. Its currently budding.
If we don't experiment, how do we learn
edit: I forgot to add that when this plant was a seedling, it had the tap root cut off (accidentally) and it still came back to life.