The same people who expressed to me their concerns about adverse effects of easy start on compressor life also install generator backup systems. They use hard starts on ac units that need to start on generators (of course that would not work with an inverter) They say a hard start does cause more initial stress, but the effect on lifetime is not measurable and they have many, many years of successful experience using them. They say the extended time periods at low voltage that an easy start invokes will result in higher temperatures in the compressor during the extended start and while it may turn out that after many, many years of experience the impact is also not measurable, they believe it will be.
Now, for my opinion, much like the medical field- if you don’t have the disease, don’t take the medicine or if you personally have no risk of problems with CoVid, don’t take the even tiny risk associated with the vaccine and any vaccine. The same goes for an AC unit, if you don’t need to start it offgrid, there probably is no benefit to justify the risk of an easy start.