[jwzimm]

You should go in and look at the front knuckles before you condemn the vendors. In order to pass the front drive shafts through the knuckles they had to raise the strut mounting point. This reduced the available distance between the knuckle and the top of the strut tower. You could build a strut to go in that space but you would have so little travel in the strut that you may as well be riding on solid chunks of metal. Add to it that the X-drive market is much smaller than the RWD market and the R&D costs would not be offset by sales.