Question about the leaves on inner side of plant, close to the main stem

My 2nd grow is an Auto Gorilla Glue from fastbuds. I have a week or so left before harvest. I decided to pull back the buds on branches on the middle to bottom of the plant. Are the leaves here all light green because they were so tight to the main stem, and never really got any sunlight? The rest of the outer leaves are normal or maybe a tad bit of a darker green(possibly a little to much N). I tried pulling the buds away from the stem, to try to let some light in there, if this was the problem. Could the buds have been larger, if I did this long ago? Did I harm anything by not pulling them back? It seems like there are less fully formed trich heads on these light green leaves.

P.S. Do I have to get all new soil, before planting every new plant in a 5 gal. smart pot?

Thanks in advance,
Don

Mods, should I have started this thread somewhere else, not in the newbies section? Not getting any answers here, please move if you feel it's necessary. Thanks in advance.

You can typically yield more using LST to spread out your plant to catch more light, yes.

you can harvest the outer first and wait another week or two for the inside stuff to ripen/fatten up. Or just use it in the hash trim pile.

ps most people use new soil. unless you are getting into the compost/supersoil/organics side of things.

I'm in Coco amongst other things and have been running the same Coco for a couple of years...