Interesting way of describing transitional information for spring dampers. In some aspects the OP is correct but you are right he is very vague and a couple of the things he mentions to do will get you into trouble and will make setting up the car a lot more difficult.
First remember that before anyone even attempts to make changes to the setup of the car, they should be very proficient and comfortable with car and track. I would suggest that being able to do 5+ laps with laptimes around .5 to .8 apart is where you want to be before you attempt a change. The reason for this is because you need to be that good to see the differences from what you are changing. I don't mean to imply that some of you can't see the differences, but some of the changes might not be seen if your laps times are what you are going by. Also remember that the spring dampers are usually the last thing you adjust to try and get the car balanced as the rest of the suspension is more suited for the rougher tuning required first.
Spring dampers are designed to control the weight transfer to and from any given wheel at any given time. They make it to where the weight either hits hard onto the tires or soft depending on settings. Controlling the weight transfer allows for better grip where we want it and will help reduce lap times a little because of it. Car weight control is usually described as balanced when you can enter, negotiate and exit a turn without a ton of thought and control input to keep the car from losing control. If you need to make constant changes in your steering input, throttle input and brake input to be able to make a corner, then your car is not in balance.
Keep in mind that any change that is made to spring dampers will most definitely have effects on areas besides what we are trying to get straightened out. As most of the suspension tuning we do is for road courses and not ovals, the beginning tuner should always keep the settings to where they adjust symmetrically, or where you adjust one side and the other side automatically adjusts for you.
A couple of small notes to remember. For the most part anytime you adjust bump on one end of the car, you should adjust rebound in the opposite direction on the other end of the car, there are exceptions, but the beginner need not worry about that just yet. Also note that testing your adjustments on a straight line are not going to give you much information on the changes. For RWD cars, pretty much the quicker you get the weight on the back tires the faster you can accelerate, and the faster you get it on the front tires, the harder you can brake, but only in a straight line. For negotiating turns, sudden weight changes put the car out of balance and can cause you to lose control very quickly.
There are charts all over the internet on how to adjust your spring dampers for different conditions that you are experiencing. Keep in mind that most of that information out there refers to stiffening or softening the damper. To stiffen, you would raise the numeric value for the bump or rebound which ever you are adjusting. To soften it would be the opposite. For instance if the car won't turn and wants to keep going straight with no brake input then it is likely that the weight isn't on the front wheels enough to allow them to work. To fix this you would adjust the front bump to make it stiffer and make the rear rebound lighter in order to let the weight move onto the front tires. For acceleration, RWD cars want the weight on the back, but FWD cars want to keep the weight on the front as long as possible. To keep the weight on the front, you would stiffen the front rebound and soften the rear bump.
I would suggest that anyone attempting to make changes to a setup that is just learning, talk to someone who is experienced in it so that they can help explain what each setting does and when you would change it. I would also suggest that unless you are an alien and can feel the differences immediately, run several laps to find out if your change made a difference. A general rule of thumb though is change gears first, change springs next, then anti-sway bars and then dampers. Once you have done this, go back and start at the beginning and do it all again until your car is not improving with your changes.
Glad someone was able to point you in the right direction.
