IMO you're better off buying a debonair B shaft with 10mm more travel than you need as it will sit down into its travel anyway. This solves the problem of sitting too low, without making it harsher.

 

Just fit a Smashpot coil conversion, problem solved. But also a fork will never be quite as plush as the rear on small bumps as it is linear, rear ends tend to be progressive so the first bit of travel is softer than the mid etc, the damper is moving slower at the start of travel on progressive linkages. Also you tend to have less weight on it. A nice comfortable carbon bar helps quite a bit with taking the edge off and also foam grips, maybe try the ESI or Rev grips.

 

Just fit a Smashpot coil conversion, problem solved.

Sure! Can you give me one for free? Because I just spent all my money on my new bike.

 

IF I do want to try the new air spring, can I buy just the seal head, or do I need to buy the entire air spring assembly?

 

Buy the rebuild kit, it comes with the new sealhead and footnut. Take a look at the thread on the new spring though, it's pretty clear that it will not help small bump compliance and that was my experience.

 

I'm not sure there's enough to get the fork moving. The pike on my hardtail, which is pretty smooth, would probably be pretty stiff on that surface as well (it's pretty stiff on similar looking surfaces).

BTW, yea I think (having ridden both for a while now) that the C1 sealhead keeps ya too high in the stroke to have as smooth a small bump compliance as the B seal head, but we're talking degrees.

I just double checked, my pike came with a B seal head. Trailhead shows the sealhead as an available upgrade kit.
00.4020.573.000
Air Spring Upgrade Kit - DebonAir C1 Sealhead - PIKE/REVELATION LYRIK/YARI 35mm

 

A bit of an update.

Put a lot of miles on the fork in the last 2 months, and I just pulled it apart again. Took out the damper, spring, seals to check the bushings. They're pretty much perfect, the uppers easily slide in the lowers if I pull them up and let go of them. The only issue I could see wa that the air spring barely had any lubrication.
Cleaned everything, greased the air spring, changed the oil, and I put green SKF seals in because why not... One ride in, I think the fork does feel better, but it's still not as sensitive as I would like. I also bled the damper, and now it feels like the compression dial does do something, but it's a very very slight adjustment. Oh and I found out that the fork does have the C1 air spring.

I also met some new riding buddies and tried a previous gen 150 Pike and a 150 Pike exactly like mine. Both of them felt very similar in terms of sensitivity, but on the previous gen Pike with the Charger 2.0, the compression dial made a much much bigger difference.
Now that I pulled apart the air spring, I felt how much friction/stiction there is in there. I'm pretty happy with the fork but I do see a coil conversion in my future...