I do have a question for you. You can see, I start an in a solo. They get to 5 nodes when I top em in about 3 weeks. Then I give em another week, then transplant. By this time, the branching is just starting. Wondering if I'm leaving them too long in the solo. And the internodes are real tight. I wonder if I would make faster progress of I eased up on the light or I transplanted sooner, or started them in the bigger container from the getgo.
The general answer to all that is yea your right, transplant sooner.
Im still not sold on this coco as the main media, i think its stunting my plants vs tge bagged soil. Think its clearly stunting the growth, but the rooted exploded, so i may be able to wrangle control, but still not the best growth.
Generally its best to transplant almost as soon as the roots hold the dirt together if your going for the biggest bushest plant the fastest, and delaying transplant can stunt lateral growth while it inches upwards. I left some plants in solo cups for about 2 months (nowhere to put them else!) Then recently put them in 2 qt. Still too small for em but sometimes ya just gotta slow em down. They tend to explode when finally getting up-potted, so just learn what happens then yse it to your advantage.
One of my best indoor plants ever was straight into a ~25gal~ from seed. Growth is always going its fastest but you gotta be careful not to overwater it an choke out the roots when doing it like that.
Just like outside, ive seen people start several month early looking for a head start and they transplant to a 5 or however many gallon pot before getting outside in may, with a big ol bushy 4 ft plant, they dig a hole an put it in. Other people may get a cubic yard of dirt, dump it all in one big pile and put a seed on top, in june, and somehow that seed planted in june is bigger then all the work and time put into the other plant.