The paper pays homage to the outstanding contribution by Gideon Maidanik to studying synergic action of multiple add-on oscillators in reducing resonance response of a main structure. Methods and results of constructing multi-degree-of-freedom mechanical systems with required responses in frequency and time domains are presented with application to optimal vibration isolation, impedance matching and shock absorption. It is shown, in particular, that the limiting quality of instantaneous shock isolation, which was usually attributed to highly non-linear, heavily damped or active systems, can be achieved by linear low-damped multi-degree-of-freedom mechanical systems. Such systems can be synthesized as multiple vibration absorbers, stacked oscillators (chains), or more general structures including motion transformation elements.