One other thing - what does the applicable regulations say for your market, and for this type of equipment/power range?

One important thing is that the power companies doesn't too much like loads that either phase-shifts current and voltage, or that have high crest factors. If current is only drawn for short parts of the half-period, you will get high crest factors, since the difference between the maximum current drawn and the effective current needed to produce the same amount of power will greatly differ.

When you have switched to regulating using full half-cycles, your power factor and crest factor will be nice since you basically have a nice resistive load.

But during the soft-start, where you only drive the header using parts of the periods, the peak current will be very much higher than the effective current. That is a reason why it may be advantageous to look at a resistive limitation of the initial current.

On more and more markets, the requirements for power-factor-corrected equipment becomes very important. And for smaller and smaller power consumers.