I want to focus on the first part of your statement. Usually, you are correct, the leverage ratio is not that important at the early part of the travel. For most suspension designers (myself included), this is where you might make a compromise to get your more ideal rate thru the rest of the travel. In the case of the Missing Link, I paid extra attention to that part of the travel. Because now, it is in my usable, rideable range of travel, not just negative travel as with all other bikes. I chose to use a pretty extreme falling rate in that portion, for the reasons I mentioned.But in the early part of the travel, when you've done almost no compression of the shock, the leverage ratio of the linkage is really not that important. Case in point: Nomad vs Capra have almost identical leverage curves past the sag point, but the nomad is the usual regressive-progressive of VPP, while the Capra is straight progressive and starts out with a much higher leverage ratio than the Nomad (3.3 vs 2.5, IIRC). The difference in breakaway force between the two comes down to who serviced their shock seals last.