Progress...If You Can Call It That

Yes, it is one week before Thanksgiving and I decided to get back to stripping the fabric off of my dining room chairs.  What is wrong with me?

This is the bottom of the seat after I have removed two layers of fabric - the one I had paid a guy to put on and the layer underneath that he was paid to remove, but didn't.

His idea of adding new padding was to put strapping across the bottom and stuff some padding between the original strapping and the new strapping.

Layers.

Down to the original seat, or whatever that underlay fabric is.  Under that is a thin layer of padding and the original strapping.

So, the question of the day is...shall I strip it all the way down and add new padding or recover the seat as is?  Or, I could add the padding on top of this old fabric.  I don't  know much about upholstery so I don't know the best way to go about this.  The easiest thing to do would be to add the padding on top, then put the new fabric on.  Does anyone know a down side to taking the easiest route?  My friend says there is enough padding already and I don't need to add any - just put the new fabric on.