The spider valve replaces the vent solenoid on the compressor, so if it is bad you can just get one of these and not worry about it. The primary use of the spider valve is to remove moisture from the air-ride system.
The compressor pulls in moist air, most of it gets absorbed by the "dryer". The dryer is where the four lines going to each bag connect. It contains a water absorbing material that is suppose to dry out the air, but it does not do a good job because the air entering it is heated up by the compressor - hot air hold moisture better - so some water still gets into the system. The moist air eventually condenses when it cools and you have water in the system. When it vents to park the air reverses direction going the other direction through the dryer and the moisture should be pushed out, but moisture in the cold air is stopped at the dryer - because its doing its job better with the cold air than hot air.
Thus the dryer easily becomes saturated and water gets trapped "behind" the dryer in the lines and bags. Its like a check valve and the moisture builds up. Moisture/water is bad for rubber and will cause the bags to fail prematurely as is breaks down.
So the way to help is to do two things. One is a spider valve from AmericanAirSuspension.com What is does is simply let the car vent right to outside air versus blowing back through the dryer. This better removes the moisture because it does not get blocked by the dryer, it really leaves the system. In time nearly all moisture is removed. The other thing that helps is to remove the dryer, take it apart and bake the water absorbing material for about 2 hours at 250 degrees. I had TWO completely freeze up on me and blow right off since the air had to go somewhere and could not make it through the frozen dryer!!!