Go with the OME 927's up front and be done with it man. There's a reason nobody is recommending anything other than OME or Ironman - cause they are the best out there.
As far as shocks go - I'd recommend the Ironman's. That's what I'm running and it's a great set up. Worth every penny.
As far as functional vs. mall crawler - look at it from a ride quality perspective. My '02 had the stock suspension on it with 123k miles, was sagged about 1", the shocks were busted and leaking and I hated the ride. Felt like I had no suspension at all. I went to Mopar and priced out stock replacement parts and was looking at close to $1000 for all stock parts, plus I needed new tires anyway, so I was looking at a $1500 bill for ****** stock parts and cheap tires. Then I stumbled upon an Ironman lift kit on Craigslist and after researching it a bit I found this forum and read through all of the threads, asked a couple newbie questions, made some enemies, but found for about $1300 I could get a brand new suspension that rode 100x better than stock, was lifted about 3", and got some good tires - and saved a couple of bucks. I have over 4k miles on it and have yet to take it off road, so definitely a mall crawler here.
I went from hating my KJ to loving it. Keep finding myself dazing out my living room window at it, lol. I've shared too much....