My team (Mystudents and I) tend not to spar much, only a little bit with the few weeks before fightins to put everything together. So far we are winning most of our fights, so something is definitely working!

Most of out technical training is drills - kind of controlled sparring liited to 2 or 3 technique options.

For example I will get them to kick eachother's arms back and forth at a comfotable pace. Then I will add a few options, for example:

a) make miss and counter kick
b)intercept with a cross

The point is to get them to make a consious decision at the heat of the moment, to not do a mechanical drill that requires no thought. At the same time, limiting the options keeps them focused on a few common responses gives them enough repetititon to master those few techniques.

In general, I would say that technical drills are more useful than sparring