That can make a big difference, those pads ride between each leaf and reduce friction. Its a marked difference when you get them greased up. They grease through the bottom of the leaf spring with a needle attachment on a grease gun.
It just depends on the load. For 40's with decent/significant weight on them, the dampening of the OME's are preferred versus a standard 5125 Bilstein. On lighter vehicles, the 5125 is a great shock.
Did you ever replace the inner leaf liners you emailed about? Those could improve ride a fair...
It's a total non-issue, we've paired hundreds of OEM setups with Bilstein shocks for lighter weight applications. OME springs with higher end shocks work really well too, we've paired with Dobinson IMS, some Fox options back in the day, etc. All about matching the setup to your load and driving...