[Steve Tinker]

jaykay, this may or may not help before you spend up big.......
A couple of months ago I pulled my front roll bar and drop links off when I fitted new steering rods. When I removed the droplinks, I noticed that both links looked in good condition (no tears to the rubbers) but the bearings felt very stiff when rotating them on the bench. So I prized open the rubber boots and sprayed in a fair amount of lithium grease - from a pressurised spray can "straw" - into the bearing. They immediately rotated & felt much better with the new lube. So assuming the roll bar rubbers were in the same condition, I removed the rollbar carriers and greased the rubber internal surface with lithium grease too (they were dry).
On the first drive after after assembly the front end of the car felt a lot more compliant than previously - so good that I jacked up the back end and did the same to the rear roll bar rubbers and drop links.
This may not help you with worn out shocks, but I was very pleased with the improvement in road feel compliancy - and my car has only 80,000 km (50,000 miles) on the odo.
This is not a big job - you may even be able to prize open the rubber boots and lubricate with the droplinks in place, but for a couple of hours work the improvement on the road was well worth it - and it may also lengthen the rubber bushes and droplink bearing life too.