They were still available from Ford last time I checked.

What happens with most it the universal joint at the gearbox end gets worn and sloppy, hence you feel like its too sloppy. If thats the case fitting a quick shift will just give you a positive quicker shifting sloppy linkage

A quick fix is to peen the joints back round to tighten them up again or carry out a more permanent solution as described here

http://www.zetecinside.com/xr2/gearbox.htm#linkage

HTH