I ran the 88mm first stage with 238/30's at first. Worked like a charm and pulled mid 5's. The 250/200's pulled just shy of 600, but I was running very little timing compared to some of these guys pulling 600+ on that nozzle. When the nozzle is slow (comparitively) it takes a lot of timing to get the fuel in the cylinder in a decent window.
For comparison, I recall Jason telling me that Jody had his timing set at "9" degrees back in the day when he was pulling low to mid 600's on the 4202. Looking at one file I have from Jody I also know the multiplier values are throwing timing in there too. But aside from that.... just looking at a value of 9 in the sea-level/-altitude tabes would compare to a value of 3 in my own tables at a similar point for comparison. Not even counting the effect of the other tables that would be 6 degrees of timing right there. To put that in perspective, I went to the dyno one time and did nothing but add timing in 1 to 2 degree increments and at 3400rpm ~8 degrees was worth ~140rwhp that day...
Course I also lifted the heads and had to back it back down. Luckily I was running Cometics and not stock gaskets.
You can squeeze more power out of a smaller nozzle if you wish. But it starts getting pretty painful on the engine. Making the same power on a quicker nozzle, with less timing is going to be less stressful on parts. If you build it strong enough it can usually hold. But it's just easier on parts to keep the timing down instead of trying to build everything bulletproof and squeeze every last drop out of a smallish nozzle.
But as far as "spooling" a set of compounds.... forget about it. Find something else to worry about. They'll spool just fine with that 38R lighting the party. You could run stock injectors with an 88+mm first stage and have no issues whatsoever. Only problems I've ever had with spooling is keeping boost down at various times. When I first fabbed my original setup I had to add a second gate because I could not control boost. Now, with the 55 I cannot run less than 80lbs with the 38R gate wide open and the 55 only making ~20 to 25lbs.