I had a quite different experience. After aprox. 20k km I fitted a damget rid of shimmy, partly to avoid the bump steer that are inherent in cars built around 2004 due to the steering geometry. The bump steer got much better, the shimmy to a certain degree (what really helped was a very meticulous balancing of the wheels). What I did not experience, was a heavier steering after the damper was fitted, contrary to the TS. The steering was and still is very heavy at low speeeds, but that - in my opinion - is because of the wide tyres. So in my case fitting of the damper did not affect the heavy steering significantly.
Your car is most certainly fitted with Devol bushes and mild steel king pins (if they are not changed to bronze/hard chrome by the previous owner). Beware, they can wear out very early, and seriously affect both steering and suspension. The user experiences are confusing, some sat they wear out after 20k km or even earlier, others have reached up to 80k km on the same set. Mine are at 42k km and still in good condition, no MOT problems (and yes, they are properly tested). N I grease the KPs quite often, every 500 km and also some extra shots with the grease gun before each long trip. The manual suggests greasing every 7000 km, which I think is way to seldom.
