I had a cork with eye pins in for ages. Then I made the “Sloughdinium WDT” by making a handle out of Sugru.
Eventually the Chinese copied the Londinium stirrer and sold them for £7 on the bay. But these things are for stirring (Weiss Distribution Technique). As pointed out above, this porcupine thing is for creating controlled and even channels to encourage the water to permeate more evenly, theoretically removing the need for WDT and care when preparing the basket.
I stuck with the Chinese WDT tool. For me there are so many extra tools to add to your workflow but you might end up spending a lot of extra time and money. If you can’t much taste the difference then it’s just faff. For those that find the various pre-tamp levellers, spiky things, screens and whatnot useful, and can perceive the benefit, fair play. I just CBA, personally, but as I haven’t tried most of them I can’t say whether I’m missing a trick or not!