Some will argue that a high bridge - one that creates a more acute angle over - results in a 'stiffer' feel to the action. You would think that string tension is string tension and that this is dictated by string gauge and scale length.
On fixed bridge guitars I've never noticed a difference in feel and tend to set mine up with a reasonably significant break angle (I think it helps sustain and tuning stability.) On my strats I have noticed a perceptible difference in how the guitar feels after I've shimmed a neck and re-done the setup to lower the saddles closer to the body. Why is that? String tension has not changed - same guitar, same strings, same tuning. Very little else, other than saddle height/string angle has changed. But what typically has changed is the claw setting.
When I set up my strats (all vintage six point) I set them up with a floating trem - typically enough float to pull the B string up to a C. Whenever I shim the neck or significantly alter saddle height I find I need to adjust the claw to get the bridge back to a similar degree of float. This changes the position of the springs - yes the total amount of tension should still be equal since the trem is being postioned back to the previous equilibrium point. But springs seem to have something of a sweet spot and their performance characteristics are not particularly linear. That is what I think people are actually feeling - a change in the behavior of the trem system and how it responds to the player's actions.
Basically a trem is a fulcrum held in balance by two opposing lever arms. As the guitar is played the trem will tend to move through a range of angles and these changes will create that 'feel of the action's playability. When you change the 'set-up' string angle you also change the relative range of angles that the trem will tend to travel though - this will also change the feel of the action. Can a player really feel the difference in the vectored forces being applied through the trem? I tend to think so.
I'm not much of a technical writer and I hope this makes some sense.
