actually I damaged my back years before I started competing. there wasn't a time since high school that my bad back didn't impede my ability to train as hard and heavy as I wanted. had I the ability to go all out and not worry about crippling myself, who knows how far I could've gone. 
Being that you only have a human body, though, don't you think the heavier style would prove to be counter-productive, no matter what? I'd say the question is what would have happened had you begun to train like the pros you observed using lighter weight.
Because the very first thing I noticed when I looked at your past pics, is that your build appears to be much stronger than the typical BBer, and with a different look to your muscles. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I take that as a sign of your training style. The unfortunate thing IMO is that such a style can only hold so much of a future in any one body, and it won't necessarily get a person very far in BBing.
