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I agree that firing on Ft Sumpter was a blunder. Sure something was bound to happen sometime, but it was the attack on US soldiers and US property that galvanized the northern citizenry. It was that event that committed ordinary citizens to fight. Better to let the north invade and make the first mistake.
I have read that Ft Sumpter was intended to steer Virginia to secession - so an impetuous act of war was taken to influence politics.
My sense is that the confederacy would have been better off waiting - not only because time would have allowed the them to better prepare but because it would not have created a cause for the north. Let sleeping dogs lie.
Instead confederate leaders believed their own rhetoric.
The Confederate leaders were looking to be recognized as a sovereign nation. They couldn't wait and let Sumter be resupplied and reinforced. They would have looked like an international joke. The Union was almost in the same boat. How would they have looked on an international scale if they had gave Sumter up? But like I said before if Lincoln's orders to Captain Adams had been carried out at Pickens, war would have probably started there.