Very interesting thought experiment!
If I think in terms of the question posed, what "would be best for me when it came to being spanked", "the same", or "something different"? a number of thoughts arise....
I was an only, and my parents were older and strict. I've written about that before. My dad was a bit of bully and my mom was moody. It would have been cool to have a brother or sister to kind of absorb my parent's energy with me. If they were having a hard time with each other, or dad with work, I think I sometimes bore the brunt of it, and it got taken out on my butt sometimes!!
Overall, I think I should have been spanked a little less frequently when younger (when it probably averaged 2 spankings a week), and maybe a little more in my teen years when I needed more discipline/attention, and I probably got spanked maybe every two to three months at most. I was silently floundering and needed limits. (I did get a few really intense punishments during those years, but I think "less and more often" would have been better for me!)
I also wished my parents were younger and more positive. I had friends who got spanked as often as me but I felt their parents were just kinder and more involved than mine were. In my view, they were helping their kids grow up right, while I was getting "punished".
Severity was about right, I guess for the time period, (late 60's and 70's). But I really hated getting the riding crop on my hands from my mother. The few times she did that, (it was as I was getting mature ,and before my dad took over all my punishments), I really hated her for it. And as someone mentioned below, seeing her face as she whipped my open palms made it really nasty somehow. (I'd take otk, bent over the desk, or chair anytime over that!)