As it is now with the player initially tethered to start spawn, shopping for a seed with a nice spawn point is important. But if a starting player was spawned in with a temporal gear and note to choose carefully where to use it, the player is then free/encouraged to look for a nice base location regardless start location/seed.
I personally don't know if it matters 20 respawns or infinite. After several deaths I feel like I lost the game and need to start over anyway.