I starch my backings heavily (do a search on starch to find my method described in other threads) and also spray baste. That combination has always worked well for me. I do use 100% cotton batting (Mountain Mist Blue Ribbon) and that may be a factor. Starched backings and spray basting seems to become more problematic with polyester battings; some people don't have a problem, but others do. I suspect that problem may be with 100% polyester battings; in the past I used 80/20 batting (80% cotton/20% polyester) with spray basting and did not have any problems with a heavily starched backing.
A heavily starched backing will definitely help prevent unwanted tucks and puckers when machine quilting.