Same vote here too..............I helped install two of their kits and I was not particularly impressed with the quality and fit. In all fairness this was several years ago and they seem to have revamped their line. I dont like to bash on companies but it seems that they had some quality control/ customer service issues when they started out.
The biggest reason I vote tires is that I think tires make a huge difference! My jeep had some sad looking balding tires on it and I bought tires. Main reason being purchasing a lift and tires was out of the question financially. Now I don't think I am even going to lift the Jeep now. Some swaybar disconnects and chuck the rear trackbar (YJ wrangler) and it will get me where I need to go just fine.
I should have put in a few more comments with that sort of declaration, but was a bit short on time. This guy summed it up pretty well.
Once upon a time I was short on $$ after doing a bunch of work to the TJ and I needed it back on the road. I ended up with a Rusty's front track bar and a pair of rear uppers because they were cheap. The rears constantly destroyed bushings and were cheap. Also, despite very liberal application of antisieze they became one piece.
Also had another friend that put the full 3" kit on their XJ. The kit was cheap, but far from complete enough to really be drivable without some work. We were running a shop @ the time so I had a bunch of RE odds and ends lying around to finish up that kit to keep the friend on budget. Silly things like longer links for the swaybar, a t-case drop kit (not always needed, but its a 2x2 piece of metal for an XJ and 4 bolts.. EVERY other brand we dealt with came with them, which was good because we had a few extra lying around).
The HD rear spring packs were very harsh, to the point where the Jeep could be brought into oversteer on dry ground pretty easy. I enjoyed it, but sadly the guy with 2 kids didn't think it was too safe. We did some more work on that XJ and got it tolerable.
During the time we were running the shop we were able to provide fairly good deals on RE stuff to many people. A lot of the customers we had were upgrading from parts that they had gotten from Rusty's and were tired of dealing with them. They were really annoyed when they found that we were selling RE links for what they were paying for Rusty's stuff.
Granted, most of this was several years ago. I've met the Rusty's guys @ shows and they were really friendly and seemed to have good intentions. Their target market also appears to be people looking for budget lifts. The downside here is that it takes work or volume to make a decent lift on a budget.. And most lift companies just don't do enough volume, so there's some creativity in the parts or design.
But, having run their stuff and broken their stuff.. I'd much rather wait a little longer and find something a bit better. I've got that luxury now, and sometimes wish I just had a little more patience when I first got the Jeep.
Jason