I've heard it's somewhat reasonable to snipe if the raws have been available for over 2 months the previous group still hasn't uploaded their work. Also, an offer to work together with them is reasonable as well.
I believe that the logic behind those guidelines is that not all small teams like yours stick it out for too long. They have a passion and get a lot done, but then they petter out as just life happens. Imagine people from a small team needing to go back to school or job that take a lot of man-hours out of their week. Or have a kid, or get into an accident, or just generally get burnt out from all the things involved in the scanlation work.. it happens more often to small, new, teams than it does to longer established ones.
That all said, you do you. Seriously, life is what you make of it. There will be people that disagree with your methods and those that support you, even those that have no idea you ever existed. All in all, the most important opinion will be you own (unless you're commit genocide or curing world hunger, either end of that spectrum has some pretty solidly pre-established Good Vs. Evil morality to them.)