Hi MadMike,
I have a few F22's, and one of them is bootless, and so I can tell you that the boot contributes almost, but not quite, NOTHING to the overall tension of the stick. In the FLCS with weaker springs, however, the boot contributes significantly to the tension.
Taking the torsion spring out seems not too difficult, but unwinding it with any precision and safety would require a shop and tools I just don't have. What I'm hoping for is someone to come on and say, "Oh, you need a different spring, Mouser part number 123456, and it only needs to be clipped a little bit and it fits right in." I guess we shall see. I'll head down to the hardware store later and see if any of the dozens of springs in their drawers might be suitable.
-Llama