While they did tweak things like the number of root entries and such, the main way to get more space was simple to cram more sectors onto each track than the standard format (and make sure they weren't using cheap floppies that couldn't work correctly with the extra data density).

Some cheap/grotty/dying floppy drives were not happy either the extra data density either, though that was a rare problem (anecdata: I experienced one drive that didn't like the format but would read everything else I expected it to).