I doubt it. After the a few hundred (thousand?) blocks are mined, the mining difficulty algorithm will kick in, making mining just as difficult as it was before

I doubt it. After the a few hundred (thousand?) blocks are mined, the mining difficulty algorithm will kick in, making mining just as difficult as it was before, relative to the new hash rate. It will mean gpu miners won't make anything at all, but the overall volume of new coins won't increase. Further reading: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty