Yeah there is really no difference with the Firmware on the Wii. The lower you downgrade it the more, and less possibility's you will have of installing mods.
Taking the 1.0 Firmware that had limited mods at the time, and HBC was not exploitable, and to exploit it you had to use the Twilight Method. But compared to the latest (3.4) you can easily add in cIOS's, and such without a lot of risks of old apps that were reliable back in 2008 - 2010ish Utility Mods.