Base valve free bleed, what does it do?

[bergerhag]

As far as I have read, most people here are satisfied with their stock fork valving (with just a liitle more HS rebound damping).

The EC/DE models have quite a lot of free bleed in the base valve as seen in pobit's posts. Now the FSE '05 has NO free bleed, (no bleed hole, valve face shims cover ports completely, and they are doubled too).

I was kinda hoping that adding some free bleed to my FSE base valve would help get rid of its harshness and deflection problems. I have tried all kinds of settings and valvings, but recently i went back to stock FSE three stage stack, but removed one of the double face shims, and now finally I am getting some progress in the deflection problem. Not good but better.

So what is the purpose of all that free bleed on the EC models?