me too! another thought would be you could define a dummy morph to hold your softness value. This could be set to 2 or 5 for example depending on your body part. A python script could read this dummy value as the softness level. I think i would like gravity to be a big factor as well. So two forces really, gravity and the other object. Seems doable to a limited degree. But it also seems a simulation setting is unavoidable. just my 2 measly cents.