The tension spring mounted to the motor setup upon further testing seems like a somewhat bad method. The issue I'm having is too much play in the tubing running between that spring and the finger joint. When tension is applied to that spring by way of the tubing, the tubing recoils and moves quite alot and allows alot of slack out to the joint so that the spring has very little involvement in the joint and doesn't really get used much period. So the full range of motion of the joint is just absorbed by tubing slack. When I tried to pretension the tubing so that the joint movement translates to the spring, the total tension placed on the joint by this became too high.

Fortunately, I came up with a much more elegant and simple solution for all of this. Basically, my plan now is to just use the bracelet cord tied point to point across the joint directly on the joint and that will be my spring for extension that counters the motor. This eliminates the need for metal springs at all which cuts costs, it also eliminates the PTFE tubing run, saving some space, and should be easier to install and easier to give precise amount of elasticity/resistance to taste. If I want more springback on the joint I can just add more bracelet cord in parallel to the first. This way I can add more resistance pretty easily.