>It should increase the branching factor considerably
Is branching factor actually that relevant? Just from writing some naive AIs for fun I got the impression that the only thing that actually mattered is how well you can evaluate a position without branching further. Whether you have 40 or 100 (or 1000) moves available, you usually just want to only look at "the best" 10-15 (ideally even less if you can), and how reliable this determining of "the best" is seems like a way larger factor than just how many branches there are in theory.
Is branching factor actually that relevant? Just from writing some naive AIs for fun I got the impression that the only thing that actually mattered is how well you can evaluate a position without branching further. Whether you have 40 or 100 (or 1000) moves available, you usually just want to only look at "the best" 10-15 (ideally even less if you can), and how reliable this determining of "the best" is seems like a way larger factor than just how many branches there are in theory.