Charged particle velocity distribution functions (VDFs) are a diagnostic of dissipation mechanisms in weakly collisional plasmas and a reservoir of free energy, which can drive unstable waves. Characterizing the dissipation and excitation of waves is critical to quantify energy transfer in space and astrophysical plasmas, yet they are often modeled using simplified approximations, such as bi-Maxwellian distributions, which assume thermal equilibrium along and across the magnetic field. Recent in situ observations from Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter have demonstrated that in the inner heliosphere, these assumptions become increasingly inaccurate, revealing the presence of complex, non-Maxwellian features in ion VDFs. Such features significantly alter the plasma response impacting the dynamics of the system. To characterize these impacts, we analyze ion VDFs measured by SWEAP/SPAN-i  and Solar Orbiter PAS from both missions using the Arbitrary Linear Plasma Solver (ALPS, https://github.com/danielver02/ALPS), an open-source, parallelized code that solves the linear Vlasov-Maxwell dispersion relation for arbitrary gyrotropic non-Maxwellian distributions. Unlike traditional approaches, ALPS allows for the direct incorporation of observed VDFs, capturing the full complexity of phase space structures. By applying this more sophisticated treatment of the linear plasma response, we gain new insights into kinetic-scale dissipation and instability-driven energy transfer in the inner heliosphere. This analysis provides a novel perspective on how energy flows through the solar wind plasma, informing our broader understanding of heliospheric turbulence and heating processes.