It very much depends on where you fly from. If you fly from a strip where 12 seconds has put you way beyond the opposite threshold and over some factories you might wish you had the luxury of 500 feet!!!!!!
Yep! And where I most fly, it is the other way around; 12 seconds after takeoff I'm still headed for fields, whereas at 500 ft I'll have forrest ahead and factories to the sides... So, yes, it depends...