There are only two sources of fluid leaks in the system, the first is a blown seal (in either the master or slave cylinder) and the other is a breach of the fluid line. If its dripping at the pedal side then its the master cylinder's seal that has gone bad. Normally the entire cylinder would be replaced, which is a relatively simple and not overly expensive job.
As for return feel, or how much pressure you feel at the pedal, its a function of several things but most important of them is the clamp pressure of the clutch springs themselves. That is where all of the energy of the push is stored. There will also be some smaller springs that aid in the feel, one inside each of the hydraulic cylinders, sometimes one at the throwout release arm, nearly always one in the pedal mechanism itself. When a throwout bearing goes bad you can rarely feel it but nearly always hear it. In fact that is the test, if you hear a whirring/whining sound that goes away with even the slightest depression of the clutch its often a noise caused by a bad throwout bearing. You let let a bad one go for a very long time before it has to be replaced if you can stand the noise. Back to the question of clutch feel pressure. The other thing that determines how hard it feels to push the clutch in is the ratio of the size of the surface area of the pistons in the two cylinders. This ratio effects not only the effective pressure and travel distance of the two cylinders relative to one another but also the amount of force exerted on one side compared to the other - same ratio, same basic arithmatic. So all of that gets applied to the clamping pressure of the pressure plate's springs and, add in the forces of the other springs, adjust for the mechanical advantage provided by the pedal mounting scheme and you come up with how much downward force it takes at the pedal to move the clutch plates apart. Its really not that difficult a calculation to make.
