It certainly would've been better, but they made OpenAI years before even GPT-1. They didn't realize how much money they'd need to scale the model or how insufficient donations would be.

I think the world is much better off with them having switched the structure vs. throwing their hands in the air and giving up because they were stuck as a non-profit forever.

There was no "switch". It's a parent non-profit owning the for profit corporation.

The for profit part is fine, but how is the non-profit currently fulfilling any of its mission?