A few months ago i heard a loud pop when i pushed in my clutch pedal, although i was worried as to what went wrong, the car was still fine. Today i felt something hit my foot and found a piece of a spring on the floor near the pedals. Did some research and it seems to be a common problem and most say it is not needed. My question is will anything clutch related wear out prematurely without that spring there (does the spring keep the throw-out bearing off of the clutch?) or is the spring just there to help with clutch pedal travel. If it does not wear anything out prematurely by not being there i'd like to leave it off because i like to be able to "feel" the clutch naturally and get more feedback from it (i also heard it helps with high rpm shifting if its off).
If i do decide to leave it off should i remove what is left of the broken spring or just leave it.

02 camaro ss 10k miles