What are your thoughts on Vas vs suspension stiffness ?

Now some people will tell you that Vas doesn't matter a hell of a lot if you get the box sized right cause the volume of air inside ,and coupled thru the port will make it all work out.

Of course all that assumes "standard" baro conditions and that is a seldom event , whereas the stiffness of the suspension is something you can count on in all weathers, and will also be more tolerant of boxes that aren't spot on.

Also I think that the air in a ported box especially can't be counted on to react as the figures might tell you depending on the program material , because the sound waves bouncing around in there will change things.

I've been shopping some celestion speakers and the ones I was looking at have loosey goosey suspension . It's kind of strange to me being more familiar with jbl stuff and the jbl's I'm interested in have high Vas figures compared to otherwise comparable celestions. The thing is you can't hardly lay hands on the really good jbl's of days gone by and celestion makes good stuff every day !