Has anyone considered looking at what the Baja Racers are doing? I'm sure there are somethings that could be used if not at least helpful in finding performance suspension upgrades for the Lightning.
I would bet that if someone was willing to do draw up a suspension design (ie camber gain, caster, kingplin inclination, ackerman, bump steer, tire scrub etc...), most high end offroad race shop would be more than willing to fabricate it for less than 10k. Of course you could ask the offroad guys to design the geometry but they might not be familiar or be bothered with certain suspension geometry properties with the smooth paved surfaces the Lightning would see (not to say that given the time to research, I don't doubt they'll figure it out).
I'm not suggesting that you should use these as replacement but just to give you an idea that the following are all hand built, spindles, hubs, arms, etc. There's no mass manufacturing here.
As for shocks....OEM Bilstein isn't the only choice. For a truck, you could consider their bigger shocks, like the 7100 which are fully adjustable and servicible (adjustable rebound and compression damping). By bigger, it's typically the shock can diameter, axle shafts, piston head, rod ends...7100 designates an approximately 2" OD shock diameter....the typical OEM Bilsteins are usually much less than 2". There's also Sway-A-Away which provide similar shocks to the Bilstein 7100, 9100, and 9300's, but SAW also has more choices of shorter stroke shocks, I think as short as 6"
SWAY-A-WAY - axles, torsion bars, and shocks for trucks, cars, and off-road vehicles