Yesterday, I had the opportunity to discuss this with Steve Morris while at Funston and he really went a long way to setting my mind at ease. According to Steve, rigid wings with inherently pitch stable airfoils do this naturally. Apparently, the wing will tend to initially dive into lift, and mush into sink. This seems to match what I have experienced. I mentioned to Rich Nickoley that most rigid wings I know of are more 'pitch active' in turbulence because of their pitch stability.
Rigid wings have a fairly linear pitch moment versus angle of attack in the range before stall.
Gliders that are more pitch stable will 'follow the air' more closely in gust conditions. Imagine moving a weather vane through a thermal at 30-mph speed. These are transient effects but are very noticeable to us pilots. Rigid wings behave more like the weather vane than flex wings. It may feel uncomfortable but it is perfectly normal and possibly safer because the wing that pitches is less likely to have a gust induced stall.