ofc it does matter even if u got 35k gold mine, for example gsew, both rushing 2 rax, some1 who got flow, will be allowed to make more units than another player, if some1 dont belive we can test it
I'm not an expert at GSEW, so if you say so I believe you.
.... and I agree, flow always matters, but in this case I would guess that that for the player with the bad flow, it is still not worth trying to chop a spot for a PM before halling or they would just end up further behind.
this is of little advantage when you don't have a lot of peons mining, as they rarely obstruct each other anyway
The point I was trying to make is that the advantage of a PM is most pronounced when you have a lot of peons mining i.e. around 30 peons per PM works well.
I would have thought that if your starting mine has 35k you wouldn't normally spend 12k on miners (plus more for choppers) just to get the gold. I think normally the mine would be empty before most players had that many. Obviously if you mess around being anal and trying to make a PM on a map like GOW you will get pwnt with grunts before you ever see the advantage that the PM might give you.
That being said, if terrain allows it and there is no tactical disadvantage from the hall position, then I always use PM placement by default, because it is the most efficiant way to mine.