Without titlesec the \addvspace is work as expected and adds only minimal additional space:
\documentclass{article}
%\RequirePackage{titlesec}
\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\section{a}
text
\section{b}\showthe\lastskip
\addvspace{1em}
text
\end{document}
> 9.90276pt plus 0.86108pt.
l.106 \section{b}\showthe\lastskip

If one uncomment titlesec \lastskip is zero and so the full addvspace is added. This also affects the tableofcontents which has now inconsistent spacing compared to normal sections:
> 0.0pt.
l.106 \section{b}\showthe\lastskip

Without titlesec the
\addvspaceis work as expected and adds only minimal additional space:If one uncomment
titlesec\lastskipis zero and so the full addvspace is added. This also affects the tableofcontents which has now inconsistent spacing compared to normal sections: