For your budget:

KW V1
Eibach Pro Street-S

Essentially the same product, but you can typically find the Eibach for a lower price.

Check out H&R coilovers. They dont get much mention around here, but from my personal experience they were very very nice. They were very comfy on the street, they held up well on the track, albeit a little soft, and they will get you where you want right height wise. They are not adjustable (dampening) but I wouldnt get caught up in that. All around beautiful ride, and i've heard of people getting them for less than a g. I got mine for $1000 new but that was off craigslist.

look into fortune auto. made to order and rebuildable/revalving here in the usa. lots of upgrade you can do like swift springs and thrust bearings. all shocks dynoed.

running a 10k/8k set up. like it. 8/8 would be better for DD, which comes standard.

Adding on to OP's discussion, what are you guys' thoughts on Tein CS / Bilstein and/or coils that are roughly $2k?

I second this, because the truth is you don't need 16 or 32 way adjustable dampening settings because you won't even know why you're adjusting them.

I have stance and love em

I have the Bilstein PSS10 and love it.

OP if you want to lower the Z not by much like you said; save your money and just buy lowering springs. If you want to lower it more than an inch from stock height then look into coilovers(I believe the car starts loosing performance under 1.5 or 2 inches from stock height). Also, search the market place, you can find better quality used coilovers with in that budget.

Picked mine up for 1k used and I love them, too.

It's actually closer to 3/4 inch up front and 1.25 rear before you start screwing up your suspension geometry

This.

for what you wanna do, any coilover is going to be overkill...especially a 2k-3k unit. If you MUST have adjust ability, then I'd go with stance for 1200 Alex. Personally, I have D2's but my purpose is different.

All that said, terrasmack is one of the most knowledgable people I've read info from on this forum. He speaks the truth. The only reason I disagree is because I think that's too much product for your purpose.