It should hurt nothing other than being a bit stiff to turn at low speeds or during a sharp U-turn.
Many cars are designed to lose a bit of their power steering feel at speeds anyway.
A number of older cars (Subarus for one) used rack and pinion steering for many years with no power assist at all; strictly a manual setup as you have now.
If you decide to repair this in the future, you might price this around. That 1500 sounds high for rack/hose assemblies.