We have put birds directly in the freezer after culling & processing on a few occasions due to not being able to cook it at that moment, and haven't had any issues. I believe it all comes down to a few things: the breed of the chook, how it was reared, and the person's preferences. Some people can't stand any meat that isn't falling off the bones. Some like it chewy. Many people won't eat an animal that wasn't hung or sat for days, weeks, even a month or more, but some are the opposite.
I thought of something else that would have an impact: culling methods and the tameness or wildness of the bird.
We believe the culled animal needs to be calm for reasons I will explain, and we won't cull one that's been distressed at any time in the day before culling.
Stress releases several detrimental things into the system, from fear hormones to stored toxins in the organs, and this can wreak havoc on the flesh's quality and also its shelf life as it is basically digesting itself. These fear hormones begin digesting the yellow fat into immediately usable energy so it can fight or flee, among other biological reactions set off; many artificially/intensively reared chooks do not have yellow fat, they have hard white fat, which is not beneficial like soft yellow fats are.
Also if the animal died badly enough its kidneys, liver etc can play a pretty big role in rendering it unfit to eat, hence the old beliefs that eating a strangled or drowned animal is bad enough to be forbidden. Having eaten some animals who died under less than calm circumstances, or were afflicted by injury or illness prior to being culled, I would not repeat it; the difference in flesh quality is very noticeable. You can also taste the diet in its flesh, its relative predominance of happiness or fear of its lifetime, etc, so we believe happy meat is healthy meat.
This means that to achieve this, I work to breed calm, tame animals who can be handled without fear or fuss, so whether they need handling for treatment or culling, it is always a peaceful experience for all involved. It is near impossible to calmly cull an animal that has not learnt to trust humans, and the fear starts a chemical chain reaction that ruins the flesh. After eating home-grown, I find it very hard to stomach store-bought, which I used to love, because now I can strongly taste the death in them. Strange to say, but the rankness of store bought is just too hard to go back to. We're looking forward to being able to eat home grown chickens again, when we move to a larger property. We feed as naturally as possible too, which makes a big difference in flesh as opposed to a bird that was fed pellets and never free-ranged.
But again, this will be like letting wine breathe; some won't notice or care. Some people around the world have always preferred their meat terribly distressed. In this case, the adrenaline and fear hormones would pre-digest the flesh and tissues so it's kinda like letting it sit, just accelerated and aggravated, I guess. Also you're using Cornish X's which are supposed to be great eating, but I've only ever eaten two, and after all the mix breeds I've eaten before and since, they don't stand out too much. Nice but not awesome. I prefer bantam mixes for eating, really. Whatever you choose, best wishes with it.
