a few notes-
karson- i'd be a little careful with modding the thermal spring. i used to live with a vermont castings stove with an almost identical mechanism for intake control. as the stove heated up the air in would slow. this stove also had a much smaller intake to keep the fire at a reasonable level. anyways, i decided to remove the thermal spring, with manual adjustment, and went to the computer for a while, when i returned, the flue collar and bottom inches of the stove pipe were red/orange. it was firing very hard. all i'm saying is these stoves are designed around these thermo control mechanisms. maybe just try to cut out out a bit out the thermo coil to make it a little less reactive. you don't want to melt your stove!
tom i don't know if i agree with you about newer wood stoves. i find them to be great in the fact that they can create much more BTU's from the same amount of fire wood Via. secondary combustion. with my stove, if i have a good hot coal base, and i throw a piece of really green 1x6 pine in there, immediately the air flow from the above chambers start to emit what looks like 30 little blow torches that has no connection to the flame from the wood. this is basically igniting smoke, and thus gaining btu's per amount of wood. this is the easiest way to "see" secondary combustion.
as far as newer catalytic stoves, i completely agree with you. though fewer and fewer manufacturers are going catalytic.
i'm still at a loss about the not connecting a fresh air inlet directly to a stove. if custom made, with a fiberglass rope gasket, even if the stove did back draft as the fire was out, or almost out, who cares. no carbon monoxide should get into your home. if a good sized pipe run is used, i have a hard time believing a newer wood stove could back draft until long after the fire is out, and then is is back drafting? or just moving air about.
adam