To add a little supporting information, good game designers recognize that when a gamer is choosing which game to play, they ask "What is fun?" When they are actually in-game, they ask "What will succeed?" When players are given a superior strategy that also happens to be less fun, they rarely analyze it and choose the more fun path. They're more likely to choose the more effective path then end up having less fun. That's why cheat codes are less of a thing than they used to be--game designers realized that gamers were ruining their own experiences. If a designer doesn't have a better understanding of fun than their average player, then they shouldn't be a designer.
Personally, I love the idea of making it 4-orb. It opens up powerful combos like Batariel + Regrowth without cutting tier 3 out of the game.