I owned and flew a Tiger Moth which initially designed as a Gypsy Moth in the mid twenties. It's specification and performance is just below that of the SE5a. So although I have not flown a WWI or replica WWI plane I have come close. First my system is CH combat stick throttle and CH pedals. Differences I have discovered are the obvious one that the controls are much lighter. I had no trouble adjusting my style to the default stick response curve but found the rudder controls far too twitchy. I suppose because the rudder pedals are much closer together and there is no air resistance flow over the rudder I have to fly without shoes. Even that is too light. I did a turn in the Camel and watched the ball to get balance. With standard curves it took no more than a spasm of the big toe to produce marked changes. So I have flattened that curve considerably. Haven't flown it yet but I'll let you know how it goes.

If you have a force feedback stick the default curves work just fine because the stick tends to self-center.

I tried all kinds of fancy curves, then went back to default and discovered they were fine. Yes, you do have to apply some forward stick pressure with the SE and some others that are especially tail heavy but from everything I've read, you had to do that on the real planes as well.

If you don't have FFB, you probably would benefit from playing with the curves. If you have FFB, the defaults are no problem.

I agree with Suppards on the pedals. They are too twitchy in RoF but they can be dumbed down.