@bvader So in other words, you're running less sag in the rear, maybe 25%. This gets you a more efficient ride that rides high in its travel and is more ready to absorb consecutive hits, since it's not using excessive travel on each hit due to the extra support from the spring. Before, with a softer spring, you might have been wanting more reliable traction, compliance, forgiveness, and comfort, but may have found excessive travel was being used in chunk, and you felt like the bike was being pushed to its limits sooner, and you may have felt feedback from the harsh ramp up from a progressive spring rate; this may have put more demand from you as a rider to handle the terrain, as the bike was already mostly spent after the first hit and needed time to recover, perhaps prompting you to slow down to give it this recovery time. You may have found that there's no less traction with the firmer spring, especially since you're not on the brakes as much when you actually need the traction and control, with extra control from having your muscles in a prepared state, as you are allowing the bike to handle the terrain and are expecting a certain level of feedback which you consider fine/normal (might take a test run or two to know what the bike's capable of handling without your input with a firmer spring), rather than actively reacting to demanding feedback from the bike/terrain with a softer spring.
Yes, all these words to describe the feeling from adding more air... that's how I perceive it, when someone says they're running 25% sag on a Bronson V2, vs 30% or more.
Regarding the subject weight distribution, I wrote a detailed post about it, which I'll leave a link at the bottom of the post for you to browse later. It might be too deep, so you should prepare yourself for a long read.
In general, you want to set sag according to how you will be positioned a vast majority of the time. Santa Cruz's seat angle places you well within the ideal balance point, when in the saddle on level ground, perhaps a little forward with climbing in mind. Your body should intuitively feel the balance of the bike and place itself into the bike's balanced position, with your body's CoG above and a little forward of the BB. Shouldn't have excessive pressure forward on the bars in either position, leaving most weight going through the BB, centered around your CoG (perhaps a foot forward of your hips). Dynamic geo when the pitch of the trail changes, and how weight shifts rearward when standing on descents, or when seated on climbs, is an interesting engineering challenge. Each brand has their own idea, policy, philosophy, etc. on how to tackle this. I find myself attracted to Yeti's linear suspension, which does away with all the position sensitive tweaking and gives all the support you can want from the spring itself, which perhaps can be too much for an average man. Specialized and Ibis seem to cater to the side that wants softness, forgiveness, and playful springiness that I perceive as being on the casual side of riding, best enjoyed with a short wheelbase. Perhaps it's no coincidence that Santa Cruz trail bikes are so similar to Yeti's trail bikes. They're like one step closer to casual than Yeti trail bikes, with Yeti being more race focused end on the spectrum and Santa Cruz being more friendly to the average man.
In case some don't know, sometimes the entirety of the exposed stanchion/slider does not goes past the seal to push that o-ring to the end. The stroke is what it says it is in the specs... might measure more if they made the lowers or air can only as long as necessary, or less due to negative springs and top out bumpers preventing full top-out. For example, old Fox forks had more stanchion showing than they had travel. Having extra length may cause misunderstanding, but it allows for more space for oil and other things, not to mention more surface area for heat transfer.
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Link regarding weight distro, for when you're ready. (MTBR)
Regarding encouragement to keep it coming. It's coming as long as there's questions, misunderstanding, and demand for answers. I'm partially encouraged due to being peeved that media sites, such as PinkBike and BikeRadar, don't have a solid understanding of what they're talking about, especially regarding adding volume spacers and getting a feel they didn't expect and taking stars off, due to their own misunderstanding. Stick to VitalMTB, IMO. I've called BikeRumor out on it a couple times, and I'm impressed that they actually went out to try and get educated, and shared it, so I think they're respectable at least for being more true to journalism than some marketing/media house. That and I often see a need to correct the tendencies of people trying to simplify and generalize complex subjects, and butchering facts by discussing them out of context, which generates more misunderstandings...
Thank you my friend!
Well, probably not cool. Probably hot. 
