Replica on Distributor

Does anyone have ZSM running in a large tree and NOT have a replica on
their distributor. Back with ZfS 1 we had very bad performance on our
Distributor until we put a replica with the server/distributor objects on
the Distributor. Everything still works fine but I'm trying to clean up
unnecessary replicas and would like to get rid of this one if I don't
need it. I know I can delete it and see what happens but thought I'd see
what others experience was first. I can't find any Docs or TIDS that
discuss this. Thanks ...