There’s not enough time left to meaningfully fill another 500,000 pixels; there’s still a ton of white space on the current canvas. If the place time was shortened, it would have to be down to something like 5 seconds to be impactful. Changing the “rules” to that extent this late in the game feels silly. There’s plenty of empty space as it stands.
Just my 2 cents, though.
Least you solved the problem! :)