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I think it might be related to choice of derailleur too. I sold my X01 Eagle derailleur to a friend of mine who mounted it to his kid's bike where he says it shifts much better than the one year old GX it replaced. And I'm talking about an X01 that started life on a bike in 2019 and was used up to mid 2023, did over 400k meters of descending, multiple races and was, if nothing else, the only supporting point when I parked my bike sideways straight on the derailleur onto some soil fixating logs on the trail...

Generally more progressive for a given travel amount results in higher leverage ratio at the sag point so higher spring rate or pressure to be at that sag point. This is because wheel travel is the integral of leverage ratio. If you decrease it in one spot you have to increase it in another otherwise there is a travel reduction.