Driven normally the springs alone will hurt nothing. The discs may if may like the Barnett ones which use a thinner steel core plate under the friction material, the thinner steel tabs then eat into the basket fingers much quicker than wide tabbed discs do. Asking for extra plates makes that only worse, the extra plates automatically ensure the thinner tabs as you are working with a set clutch distance in there that has to be maintained to work right. Haven't bought Barnett in a while but the 6 plate thing may be them reacting to complaints about basket wear over the years, they could ruin basket in a year or less. You need to run discs that have tabs as wide as the OEM ones.
The stock rivet plate rivets impact at the clutch working and doesn't last forever even on dead stock bikes. seen many with that broken, it being a weak point.
WHAT gear 'protection'?, the clutch ceases to exist in essence at trans gear engagements, how every clutch on the planet works. The gears have to engage with both sides of the drive disconnected, it's the only way they can engage. The gears are otherwise all loaded and running at different surface speeds, the breaking in two of the power train is what allows both sides to change speeds to equalize each other or they never mesh together. What the clutch does, even with all that cushioning missing the clutch itself is a cushion. The primary shaft cushion is as much a harmonic damper for the crank as much as a driveline damper, cranks often break with no damping and these can do it on occasion but usually on the bigger engines.
I forgot the split primary gear which is a cushion as well.
Most of the cushioning is for delicate people complaining about harsh shifting and such, much of the problem being their own technique for doing it. Past that it's NVH issues. (noise, vibration, harmonic)