Actually, tilted slightly forward allows the most dampening effort to occur at the unsprung location where it will do the most good. You don't need dampening at the extreme compressed condition. Those engineers back in the 40's and 50's knew from experience that the shocks worked best when tilted at an oblique angle to the axel travel direction. Vehicles today that have shock displacement parallel to axle travel use linearly varying damping rates to accomplish the same thing. Hope this helps.