In one machine shop I worked in some years back we had a manually operated coil spring winder. A piece of wire was fed through adjustable rollers for size & spacing etc. Once adjusted you could then crank out a continuous spring limited in length only by the length of wire you were feeding it. I made a few springs on this implement. By adjustment you could make either a compression or expansion spring. As I see it the action of a coil spring is probably a combination of beam & torion but more beam than torsion. nothing wrong what-so-ever with a good coil spring but I am shooting shotguns well over 100 yrs old with their original v springs still going strong, obviously there wasn't much wrong with them either. I think it boiled down primarily to a matter of "Economy". The coi is as stated cheaper to build. I have noted over the years that when some method provides a suitable result with better Economy, It seems to be immediately promoted as having Far Superior qualities, though that is not always totally true.

Miller/TN
I Didn't Say Everything I Said, Yogi Berra