Could having the physical position of the distributor different than what's in the bin cause issues, such as surging at WOT (or otherwise)?

I know everyone says they should match, but have never seen what issues this could cause.

 

If you're running with knock control, I can see it causing a problem. If it's aggressively pulling timing, and then adding it back in quickly, I can imagine it surging at WOT. I've never tried it though. That's assuming that you just advanced the distributor and did nothing to the spark advance or base timing in the bin.