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The '21's I have have a reddish cylinder of material in what I am calling the main spring guide. Mine are hard as rocks.!!!! Cant have much buffering value, if any......
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Be not so certain. I can't tell you about the Thompson from personal experience, but I can tell you that the buffer of the M2 .50BMG is a stack of reddish discs, that are "hard as rocks". Even the brand new discs are hard as rocks. NOT spongey, or flexible at all. And, they aren't supposed to be.
Your "buffer" MIGHT have been softer and hardened with age, I do not know, but I suspect it never was "soft". Take a look at where it is, and how it works.
Its not like the buffer of an M16, exactly, its more like the end tip of the M16 buffer, a hard (to the touch) resilient material to absorb the very last bit of bolt thrust, preventing metal on metal contact. It's "hard" so it lasts, but its considerably softer than steel.