I actually know exactly what you are talking about and this is definitely not it. I also use a 1024 intuos on my Mac and the "taper" I see with it is not even close to the strength of taper that exists with the surface pro 4. Not to mention that the taper
is universal, not only in photoshop. If it had to do with the levels, we would not see taper with the pro 3 pen, yet there is definitely taper with it. So the tablet issue is something entirely different.
Also, for all the people who are interested, I've contacted Microsoft again about this issue and they are now escalating this case. Because of language barriers, I could not exactly get out of the rep what an escalated case would mean. But overall, they
are going to wait until the pen arrives and see what happens. If it doesn't work, I have to email the rep who was working for me and let them know the pen has failed. Then we're supposed to take the next steps.
The pen should be getting to me in the next few days. As soon as I get an update about what this "next step" is, I will update everyone.