Spring rates and damping forces are both critical and interact with each other extensively.
Say you drop the car by 30mm, you 'lose' 30mm of wheel travel. Given the same linear springs and linear damper action, this means that bump that would normally compress the suspension and leave 30mm of travel left in the bag will instead see you crashing into the bumpstops. You retain comfort at the expense of having to go slower when it's bumpy.
You can regain control of the suspension by increasing spring rate, which would require a bigger bump to hit the bunpstops. Or you could increase the bump damping, which will limit the acceleration of the wheel up into the arch. Niether is in any way better for comfort though, and in reality, you'd need to do both so that the dampers are not overwhelmed by the increased spring force.
This can be counteracted to some extent, by using progressive wound springs. These are "softer" in the initial travel, but ramp up in spring rate as they travel. Problem is, these types of variable springs are harder to tune to damping settings, and compromises must be made where you tend to have either an underdamped firm setting at high compression, or an overdamped spring at normal ride height.
This compromise can work, and many manufacturers use it, but it's not ideal.
This of course means that if you want to retain comfort and drive ability, then lowering is generally not the way to go.
if you don't like it...can't get better then that.
