The Rebels' New Base Final

I don't think I'm returning into that cave again (except maybe to reuse the assets, etc.) Also, here (https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?448304-The-Rebels-New-Base&p=3300539#post3300539) is the related post on Blender Artists with the thanks, the attributions, and a bit of a background story, and here (https://www.dropbox.com/s/jjl0k0ucrnii3na/RebelsNewBase4K.png?dl=0) is the original 4K render in the PNG format (not sure if the Dropbox link will work, apologies if it doesn't). Technically, this has been the worst torture one can subject Blender to: a scene set inside a large mesh, lit by multiple tiny sources (and a particle system, of all things!), with no environmental lighting/HDRI (does anyone have a HDRI for a cave?). Even so, having invested in a Radeon Pro with 8GB of VRAM, 1000 samples and approx. 16 hours gave a decent result (with the denoising). Is it just me, or is it really better to render in a large format (like 4K), and later compress it in GIMP?