Can too much advance be bad?

[Roger Feingold]

In the past, working with a mechanical distributor, you would turn the
distributor until there was pinging and then back off 2 degrees. Maybe you
would play with the vacuum or mechanical advance to fit the curves to the
engine. Working now with an ECM, I can dial any advance I want. Is it
possible with rich AFR @ WOT and a low compression ratio to have a situation
where there will be no pinging or knocking, but the spark was so early that
cylinder pressure builds before TDC, actually reducing power output?

I don't know if I should tune to pinging, or limit to, say, 38 degrees as an
example.  Maybe some other list members have been there, done that.

Thanks.