which direction to take?

Depends on what you are doing with the car. And it depends on the condition of your hard parts. If the Torsion bars are not nicked or scarred do you need to replace them? As for the control arms, you have to remove them anyway and just take them to a machine shop with a good press and they will do the work.... It's still the same amount of work involved for you except a little running around town.

However if you are looking for reasons to do an upgrade that's out of my department so others will chime in but what you need done is exactly part of my project now and I may have 600.00 or so in it and the same amount of work.... But I am OK with the stock suspension and steering also....

JW