If it bogs down, as you found out, it is the mixture.
As for not going full throttle on a new engine, that is bad advice. You should take every opportunity to exercise the engine's full rpm range to get a proper break in. If you don't put the engine through its paces, you will never develop sufficient cylinder pressure to seal the rings aginst the piston wall. Also, connecting rods stretch at increasing rpms. If you drive slow the rod won't strech and allow surface mating to occur at those locations where the piston goes when it is revving high. What happens is the cylinder ges mated to the cylinder for only a small portion of its intended travel and when you rev higher you actually cause excess wear from the portion of the cylinder that is slightly smaller in diamter than the rest of it-a taper.
I can go on but too many knucklehead with no engineering degree to back up their knowledge base.