It would be worst off. Your explaination is on the spot Jay_boy.
we have to ask ourselves, why do these gaskets keep blowing?
Here's the reason's I too have done these gaskets plenty of times but I have found a solution.
Firstly, can we agree that heat expands & coldness contracts? Yes we can so I can go on.
The manifold is subject to both of these. Heats up when you start car & cools down when not in use. The gasket needs to cater for this, which it does. The other reason we use a gasket is so that we can make a seal between the two metal surfaces.
Gaskets do blow, but after a very long time, so why does the Nissan one blow so often?
The reason is that poeple firstly use the wrong bolts. The bolt has to be copper as this is soft enough to expand with the metal. The second very important reason is that people don't use a washer(spacer) between the bolt & contacting surface.
What this means is that vibration is sent directly onto the bolt which eventually works it's way loose.
Nissan has actually given you two plates that acts as a washer & as lock plates to prevent the bolt from coming loose.
Mechanics normally forget to put these back!!
So the plain answer to why gaskets keep blowing is vibration, which moves the metal surfaces which causes play on the gasket which allows the gas to put extra pressure & before you know it the gasket can't handle it anymore & eventually blows.
If the job is done right the gasket should last another 100000k's. Think about it guys, when Nissan made the cars the gasketed lasted but once it blew, people can't get it to stop, that's because the wrong things are used.
Bolt, Special washer locky thingy, correct gasket & lots of torque.....sorted. 8)