I'm no expert but this is what I've found after months of unlearning my "bad" rigging habits that I got from years of sailing everything else... I'd be interested to see other schools of thought on this subject.

I use both types of sail and find that as soon as there is enough wind to pump up onto the plane, the recommended d/h setting works best for either type. I just use less outhaul if I want to increase sail draft. Having said that, broken battens & cams popping off the mast might have also been due to lack of outhaul tension, 'as well as/instead of' lack of d/h tension.

I doubt you'll wear out a no-cam sail by using less downhaul. Although if you were going to rig like this I'd make sure that the lower battens don't sit any further than half-way around the mast once the sail is rigged.

I found that when I was using no-cam sails they were only faster with less down-haul in non-planing conditions (eg riding longboards in light winds). I never bothered with cams in these conditions.

don't forget it is quite important now to properly match a mast to the sail. Your mast could have been the totally wrong specs for the sail you were rigging and so it put undue pressure on it.
I'm no expert but I have learnt a lot lately about this aspect and how important it is to the performance and shape of the sail. Maybe you could let us know the type of sail and mast you are using ???

My 3 Euro's worth (The exchange rate is better atm)

What do you want the sail to do? Sail in light winds, easy to rig??. Then bottom end is critical, top end is minimal anyway. In the top end range, The differences would be topping out at 27knots versus 28 to 29 knots. (I have a Gaastra GTX cammed and a Gaastra GTR uncammed, and that is the GPS difference in similar winds) Not critical IMO. Whereas planing in 10 to 13 knots wind minimum vesus 12 to 15 knots is critical, means the differences between planing/sailing and grovelling, critical IMO. (Though the difference in ealry planing b/n a cammed and non-cammed sail of same size is predominantly in the technique, the cammed sail will require technical pumping of the sail, with the use of larger amounts of physical energy needed, but planing threshold should be about identical) The GTR easier to pump and get planing, GTX requires more pumping effort, but get going in about same winds.

Re rigging, camless always easier to rig. When I'm in a hurry and wanna rig quick, I use the GTR camless, and when I want best performance and have time, I use the GTX cammed.

Just get a sail with proper mast that was designed to do that.