If you stuff a firebox, you are not running a fire at its hottest because you are limiting air flow, thus the fire isn't going to be as clean. When running a stickburner you want to make sure you have clean burning fire or you will taste bitter smoke on your meats.
That being said, wood burning stoves are not using smoke to cook/flavor ingredients. They use the fire to get area's on the stove hot for cooking/heating. You can extend the duration of fires by packing in a bunch of wood(fuel) and limiting the airflow to it. This will lead to a dirty burning fire. But since the smoke bypasses the cooking area and piped out of the house via chimney, they don't need to worry about how clean the fire burns.
When packing a firebox east-west orientation limits the airflow between the logs where the north-south orientation gets more airflow between the logs. You will find that the north-south orientation will get hotter than the east-west (provided the intake vents are on the north or south side of the firebox)
Once again, I would never stuff a stickburner full of splits to try to extend the length of time a log will burn. You want to keep as much airflow as possible to get the hottest fire possible and control your temperatures by limiting the amount of fuel you have in your firebox at 1 time. A clean hot burn produces the best tasting food over a dirty burning colder fire.
