Some thought experiments tell you a useful answer.
But this thought experiment doesn't tell you what works, as either outcome is quite compelling and plausible. So it's not much use as a thought experiment, other than to show that it might be interesting to study it in the real world.
I.e. it might be "obvious" to you that focus on quantity over quality leads to better quality as assessed by another in the thought experiment. But it might be equally "obvious" to someone else the other way.
A real study would be interesting, because there might be a real world consistent pattern. It might actually be useful to know which one works best for real.
But we can reason theoretically about what could be the outcome of the thought experiment, and if that is compelling enough, that I think is sufficient insight, that carrying out a real experiment wouldn't give any additional knowledge.
Also since this human behaviour we talking about here. Experimental Psychology is a field known for its credibility crisis, its inconsistent and possible non-reproduceable results, that I have not much faith in it to give us useful insights, and I would be more interested in hearing many of those matters addressed from a purely theoretic point of view, than through conclusions from dubious experimental data.
In this case, when I do the thought experiment, my mind runs both possibilities and concludes they are both plausible and compelling.
When I do the thought meta-experiment of imagining other people doing the thought experiment, it sees some people imagining one outcome is compelling and likely, and other people imagining the other outcome is compelling and likely.
I'm not sure what useful theoretical point of view you would draw from that, with regard to this particular experiment.
But this thought experiment doesn't tell you what works, as either outcome is quite compelling and plausible. So it's not much use as a thought experiment, other than to show that it might be interesting to study it in the real world.
I.e. it might be "obvious" to you that focus on quantity over quality leads to better quality as assessed by another in the thought experiment. But it might be equally "obvious" to someone else the other way.
A real study would be interesting, because there might be a real world consistent pattern. It might actually be useful to know which one works best for real.