Shock absorbers KYB or KONI

Konis are amazing, I won't ever run anything else.

I have a set of the adjustable yellow sports using the stock springs. Firm but not harsh, I run them around halfway between soft and hard. One of the best upgrades I've done.

I’m quite partial to koni struts/shocks. You can adjust the rebound rate to make them softer for your commute but stiffen them up when you get to hit those mountain roads

Plus they work on stock springs if you’re like me and like the car not bottoming out

After almost two months and driving 4000 kilometers on varying quality mountain roads, I think I made a good decision when opting for the Koni Special Actives for my 2006 Mazda3. I expected them to be a bit softer, as they are stiffer than the Koni FSD. They are not uncomfortably stiff, shielding people inside the car from harsh roads and speed bumps. The car feels really stable. Summarizing my impressions so far: reduced high frequency noises and jolts, reduced body roll and pitch, increased stability, the car feels more composed even in extreme situations, and feels more premium. The faster I go on bad roads, the smoother it feels.

No, I put a set of KYB Gas-A-Justs in it with the stock springs after i discovered a weepy front shock.

I did koni inserts with epic engineering springs on my saabauri before I converted to sti suspension and ohlins fp struts. The konis felt great.

You will probably find what you're after just entirely from upgrading shock absorbers. There are stock height options from Koni and Bilstein at least (and plenty of others, I haven't dug too far into it). It will improve the ride as a lot of the poor ride quality standard is in the shock absorbers and how they're set up, not the spring rate being too soft.

I'm running Vogtland 55mm drop springs on Koni Orange STR.T shocks (daily driver) and the setup has ~50K miles on it thus far (OEM had 80K miles).

The Excel-G (which I believe are called the GR-2 now) are stock replacements. If you just want to freshen things up, they'd be fine, and with a mild drop I think they'd be okay in terms of longevity (but you never know). If you're looking for a performance shock though, the GR-2 is not it.

I would rebuild the struts with new KYB shocks and retain the OEM springs and buy new OEM mounts. I have had terrible luck with quickstruts in a Lexus.