Sway bars and spring pads

[Jbutler]

I'm in the process of re-bushing the rear suspension of my Spider and noticed a couple of things. There doesn't appear to be a pad at the top of the spring. It's not stuck up there (I looked) so I'm wondering how important is the pad, is it mainly for noise reduction?
Another question I have is what is the process for installing stock bushings on the sway bar. The lower bush on the end link isn't a problem, but the upper bush that is pressed into the link and pressed onto the upper section of the sway bar is. What is the proper way to press this bush onto the sway bar?
Or should I just chuckthe stock upper bushes and go with poly?
Thanks