I have seen antique, hand quilted quilts that have very dense quilting on them- much like some of the machine quilted ones of today- each quilt we make is it's *own persona* and deserves it's own consideration- and some people just really like densely quilted quilts- they are not (quilted to death) they are just a different *technique/look* than what YOU may prefer---that's fine for YOU- we do not all have to like them the same. sometimes the dense quilting really 'makes the quilt' I've not had a problem with densely quilted quilts remaining excessively stiff- they always soften up when they are laundered- I have a couple very densely quilted quilts that are very old- their fibers are still fine- have not 'broken down' at all---in fact the only antique quilt I have that the fibers broke down -pretty much disintegrated- was not quilted densely at all- it probably has 2"-3" between quilting lines- and the fabrics between the quilting simply dissolved.