Yes, it was an easily noticeable reduction in steering effort across the board. It's especially noticeable on a change of direction, it's completely smooth where before I'd feel a spike in resistance as the direction is changed and then a drop off again once established going the other way.
Now, could it have been there was too much resistance coming from my idler and not everyone would see a such a noticeable difference? Sure. But I didn't do anything outside of the factory install on the old idler, so, I'm sure there are plenty of cars out there that would see as much of an improvement.