As we say in the airplane, plan the flight, fly the plan, picking the cam where you want it, or where your trusted guy wants it, is usually best.
The key here is having the right valve events for the use you need. It's very difficult, if not impossible, to say "early is better or worse" Too early can have it rattle like hell or potentially intake hit the pistons. Too late can lose torque and potentially hit the exhaust. In both of those cases, the wrong choice can make it run worse in general
However, if given an option, I generally like a smidge more cam early, versus a smidge less cam late, but even that completely depends.
Now, if the cam is in, and you want the behavior to change, you can tweak it, but of course it will add some/lose some depending how far you go.
What I have always wondered is where the +4 came from with the cam grinders. +4 on a 112 is way different for intake lobe postion than a +4 on a 108. It seems like maybe to make up for loss of torque due to overlap, or loss of peak power due to lack of overlap, but it's an odd "rule of thumb" that every cam grinder seems to use.