Hello Joe and Dan,
You've got it right, Dan. You taper battens to obtain shape and compression. Near the bottom of the sail where the leech and luff are nearly parallel, the compressions can be soft, like three pounds. But up near the top of the sail where the leech rolls over toward the luff, the compressions need to increase, like up by a factor of two or three. If you plot batten compression vs batten length, it should make a smooth curve for a smooth camber distribution in the sail.
By the way, why don't your sails come with tapered battens??? Where's the QUALITY?
Bill