The answer to your question of whether you MAY receive less financial aid if you go in as a transfer student is Yes. If you will truly be accepted as a transfer student, a junior in college, there is less money available to transfers. Some colleges may consider you a freshman and then you’d be eligible as a freshmen for all those awards. Those schools may limit the number of credits they will accept (and many colleges will limit the number of AP or DE credits anyway). Other schools will take you as a junior, a true transfer student, and treat you as a transfer.
Some schools may give you the option of applying as a freshman even though you have an AA degree, and you can make the decision if you want to go to one of those schools and start fresh. If schools will give you that option, why not do it. In two years, when you have completed the AA, you can decide that you really don’t want to start over and will be happy to transfer in as a junior, or you can decide you really want to go to Princeton or Harvard (if they allow you to apply as a freshman).