I took off the resistor from my 88 300 E today but did not notice any difference in performance. So I went back home and hooked up my timing gun. There was NO difference in initial timing with the resistor connected or completely taken out.
Maybe it changes the total timing, I did not check for that.

So I decided to put it back in again.
Car performs the same, apparently this modification does not change the initial timing at least in my car.