I hear you on the DC traffic, Bob. I grew up in Springfield, and my Mom still lives in Alexandria [over by the Beacon Mall]. Anyhow, in the interest of trying to actually be helpful here, I'll add this; I purchased a set of Barnett replacement springs to keep in my track box, and upon close inspection noticed that their springs were wound differently than the stock ones. The Barnett springs were longer, and to compensate for that, the retainer cups were deeper [by a few mm].
Now, I tried The barnett springs [just to make sure there were no issues] and found no difference in pull. I wonder though, if you were to use the deeper cups from the Barnett kit, and the stock springs, it would effectively release a few mm of pressure from all six springs evenly. That might work nicely. I honestly don't know if the Barnett cups will even fit into the stock springs, or the exact difference in length, but I will pull them out of my box tonight and do some measuring.
Bob, I tell people who complain about traffic up here that they won't know what traffic is until they've been on the Beltway @ 4:30 on a weekday. If you handle that regularly on a bike....