This does happen to a degree, your start spot definitely affects what your game plan needs to be. If you want to rush, and you don't have any energy, then you need to rethink your plan. In tests this did occasionally lead to "build order wins" where one player ends up in a situation that encourages a big rush, while another is stuck collecting food and research. The general feeling amongst the testers though, was that in general you were never at such a disadvantage that you couldn't win.
We have modified the RMG to greatly reduce the number of 1/1/1/1 sectors though, since the testers were complaining that they felt punished by the RMG by not getting any sectors that gave a +2 bonus.