Very interesting read, and Phil has made some very relevant remarks. A friend of ours, Andy Dawson he used to write for Track & Race car mag and was manager of Nissan Europe Rally team with my partner's Dad, does lots of consultancy work now for everything from race teams to car manufacturers.
We were discussing our track day car recently at the launch of the new 500 Abarth Trofeo race series at Silverstone with him and a AVO representative as that's what we will be using. He told us of a recent test session at Bruntingthorpe with AVO, Andy advised a Mitsubishi EVO driver to soften his springs by I think it was 200lbs, from 600 to 400. At first the driver said car rolled to much, but Andy said drive it hard, lean on the car and we'll time you, result faster lap as suspension was actually doing what it was meant to do, soaking the bumps and allowing the dampers to work. Many kits unfortunately are too hard sprung, with too soft dampers.
Lotus, Aston Martin, and Andy all prescribe to softer springs but quicker faster reacting stiffer dampers, BUT and MR AVO admitted it was true, the customer will not accept a suspension set up that allows too much roll as they perceive that as slower, but against the stopwatch its often quicker by a considerable margin. Don't get me wrong excessive roll is not good, but some roll is needed to get the chassis working.
But unless someone can get a bench mark car and have all/or most available suspension set ups at hand to change over, and a driver who is consistent not necessarily ubber fast, but consistency is key and knows how to give good feedback, then it's all subjective as to which application is better.
We are very fortunate in integrale circles that an Aston Martin test driver who specifically does suspension work owns an integrale and done exactly the above, using his own car and a variety of suspension set ups and Aston Martins test facility at Gaydon gave incredible feedback in a very very long and detailed post on what worked and what didn't & why, ohlins very highly rated, but not everyone has that luxury.
PS notice Black Art Deisgns was mentioned, the owner John has an integrale also and his suspension is highly rated.