I run Kayaba ultra SR shocks with Eibach springs on my car, and I'm happy with it, my Escort is low enough (the splitter regularly kisses the road), and it still a confortable road car keeping a beautilful handle.

I don't like Konis, because I think they are too hard on the road, and on big curves they keep pumpin', which doesn't happen with the Kyb's.

The best quality "near to o.e" shocks are the Bilstein I think, but at the time I changed my shocks they were a lot more expensive than Kayabas.

In France we have a french maker wich name is Viarouge. He makes shocks with Bilstein system, but he can set them up as hard as you want. In my old 5GTturbo, I changed my Koni's with a set of Viarouge, and the difference was impressive. More confortable but far better handling !!

In my opinion, go for a Bilstein sprintline kit or directly for Gaz coilovers.