'Soft' versus 'Hard'

[Tanky]

We know how the Missus likes it but.............

I am having a debate about wether or not my car is too softly sprung with a friend. He believes that it should be more like kart - ie: no suspension, and says the stiffer the better but through past experiances with my car I have found that I can get better times with the car at its softest settings.

Now Im sure there are a million answers to this and that it really comes down to testing and seee which works best, but it does seem my car has none or very little damping with the setup I prefer.

Consider this assuming there are no wings front and rear. Car has independant suspension and a suspension mechanical leverage of around 1.25:1.

Situation 1:

The car weights a meesley 300kgs. Front springs are 500Lb, rears are 320Lb on 1 way shocks (bump/rebound)
There are no anti roll bars, steering geometry and tyre pessures are to a ideal seting. However allthough transient handling (turn in) is good there is terrible undertseer on steadystate cornering (mid to exit) on BOTH slow, medium and fast corners. Making changes to bump/rebound are to no positive effect (pusing the car down by hand is dificult and will only move a few mm)

Situation 2

Front springs are now 225Lb and rears are 325Lb and again an optimum basic setting used along with a raised ride height to avoid bottoming. This time the car feels balanced and there is no underteer in any situation. Dampers are at 0 bump/rebound (you can push the front of the car down with your hands 1.5" very easily as if there is no damping, but it does not oscillate erraticly). On the faster corners it was found that going up 5 clicks on the front shocks improved stability. Also worth noting is the roll angle is nearly lifting the inside front wheel.

Why was situation 2 better? Why is it not the other way round? Surely with the harder setup there would have been more weight on the outside tyres during cornering?

or

does the softer situation 2 just have more 'bite'.

and finally - would progressive springs be of good use with situation 2?