Ball bounce animation: the power of squash and stretch

Basic Principals of Animation

Richard William's Animators Survival Kit constantly stresses the importance of "squash and stretch" in all your work. Squash and stretch is the practice of exaggerating your work beyond what might be realistic, and it is commonly practiced by almost all animators. The image below, taken from the

book, is an example of squash and stretch. To take this principle a step farther, Richard William (director of Who Framed Rodger Rabbit and author of The Animator's Survival Kit) advises you to have contact in the animation before the squash (94). This is a great practice because "...we're getting more 'change' - more contrast - straight lines playing against curves... We can use straight lines and still get a lumber result." (Williams 95). I tried this method out myself with a simple ball bounce, letting the ball make contact with the 'ground' before stretching it out. (The video is above).

Does adding contact before exaggeration make that big of a visual difference on the animation? 
Coplin, Ansleigh. Williams, Richard. The Animator's Survival Kit. Farrar, Stratus and Giroux, 2009.