What's the effect of not installing torsion bar grease boots?

When I was replacing my suspension components 5-6 years back, I was in the middle of urgently trying to get the car back on the road partially out of frustration/impatience and partially because I needed to be able to move the car to access the garage. This kind of desperation is usually what leads to my mistakes.

When it came to installing the fresh 1.14" torsion bars, I found that the included stiff urethane grease boots were not even close to fitting! They were way too small. The stock boots could have been stretched a bit to fit but they were decades old (almost certainly the originals) and they were shot. I received some advice from an old timer in my family to not worry about it since some OEM applications don't even use them and besides, the car would practically never see wet roads or excessively sandy conditions anyway so I should grease them up and go.

This is what I did...which I'm just now remembering and regretting. It wasn't really that long ago but I cannot fathom why I made that decision at the time.

So what's the long term effect of this? Do I need to immediately disassemble the front suspension and install boots?