I'm not at all clear about what any questioning or dilemma might be here on design decisions; what is the desired objective?
Drinking straws are useful as an after-thought, an amelioration a too high a Q alignment, using laminar frictional air losses against the increased surface area they provide, but a correctly designed system should not require any such, and this also applies to internal box damping.
Whilst a certain amount of internal wadding is required for preventing the reflection of mid range frequency energy around the inside, and ultimately out of the port, damping of the fundamental bass reflex resonance should not be necessary.
A definite 'path' for the high air velocity bass resonance energy should be present in the middle of the outer wall wadding.