Brent: All of us who reload for the 16ga are forced to tinker to a certain degree. Cutting styrofoam disks to use as filler--even when wads like the DR-16 are available when working up 7/8 oz reloads in 2 3/4" hulls--is one solution, but somewhat time consuming. When the reload leaves too much space for a good crimp, I usually compensate by dropping in a Cheerio or 2 on top of the shot. Takes up space without adding much additional weight. Crimps are pretty good and the filler doesn't seem to hurt the performance of the reload. I find that I need something--usually just one Cheerio-- to get better crimps with the current black Herters hulls and DR-16 wads.
I do all of that just for 12s. Hull length variation, however, requires fiddling with precrimp and crimp dies. On my old Pacific, that is a PITA. Just the switch from WinAA HA to WinAA compression hulls requires the fiddling. My "newish" Hornady 366 press is only slightly better.
Fwiw, variation in crimping is an oft overlooked source of substantial variation in pressures (and thus also velocities) per Tom Armbrust's data.
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