Interesting question. I tend not to like a lot of dense quilting, because it is not my "thing", but, my quilts are soft enough. How far apart are your ditches? Also, some of us go by the batting directions of how far apart it says the quilting must be and don't do much more than that. I either stitch in the ditch or do a meander with FMQ and sometimes a combination of both. Could be the kind of batting, or very close ditches which might make for a stiffer quilt? Waiting to hear others chime in.