the leaf springs were great for something I could fabricate myself at that time/place I was at...they worked great, flexed good, gave big lift, and it was easy to set up, (I was never happy with my steering though) and I enjoyed it for a couple years, another thing was I never had to butcher the body to put leaves on it so I could always go back to stock suspension....then I started checking out bigger axles or shafts and steering options and found that a nice hp 44 or 60 from a old ford would be the next cheapest improvement I could make, but finding them started to look hard and not that cheap. So i'm in the drive way of my shop one day looking at my buddies dodge and I'm staring at his suspension and it was a whole lot like a stock xj, so I took some measurements, guestimated a bit, and was able to find this d60, with stock 4.10 for $500. I plated my subframe with 3x3x1/4 angle iron (wound up costing about $225, didnt have time to do it myself)
and I have to spend a couple more hundred on steel, bushings, and heim joints