Tighter springs are just the thing if you're using a high quality stick such as the Warthog. With a common garden variety cheapo stick however, no go. You'll need light springs and some curves with those.
And the difference is indeed profound. I'm using a beat-to-crap T-Hotas set here, and keeping it well lubricated with light springs and some curves dialled in, it behaves well enough. But I was recently over at friend's a couple of weeks ago helping him setting up the DCS Dora and tried my usual setup with his Warthog - and let me tell you, it was bloody ridiculous! The amount of curves I set up just completely murdered the responsivity because the feel and the overall stability (for want of a better word) of that thing is so much better.
So it depends, but with a high quality controller even without an extension, you really don't seem to need any gimmicks because it behaves well enough as is. Just my £0.002 though, but this is what I found out.