Something to consider is that the suspension geometry changes troughout the suspension travel. Lowering the car will lower the centre of gravity and the stiffer springs will reduce body roll, but it will most likely change the camber and toe of the wheels. I'm not sure if this has a positive or negative effect on the handling in the case of AU's. A great example is in an old episode of top gear where lotus spent about $275,000 turning a Lada into a street-driven track weapon. If you see it, you will notice that it doesn't sit very low. This is because the suspension is most effective at a ride height that isn't that low. I would suspect that the XR height would be pretty close to optimum height for the suspension.
Unfortunately there's nothing we can really do to find out whether or not lowering has a positive or negative effect unless we map the geometry on a computer or speak to an appropriate Ford engineer. The bum-o-meter isn't a good gauge as it suffers from, among other things, the placebo effect.
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2001 Ford AUIII Falcon XR8 Manual - Can't get enough of the AU
2001 VW Bora V6 4Motion - If I squint it almost looks like a Sierra Cosworth
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