You should do shocks also, but you don't need too.... You'll just blow your stock ones. I would personally just wait till you can afford shocks and do them both at the same time.... It'll save you A LOT of time, only having to do the install once.

I would reccommend ground control over skunk2 too. I don't think skunk2s are that bad, but ground contol comes with genuine waranteed eibach springs in any spring rate you want. Full (real) coilovers like tein arent worth the money IMO, and aren't nearly as practical/servicable as sleeve c/o's.

I don't know about koni reds. I used to autocross on tokiko illumina's, and they were pretty decent, and people seem to like KYB AGX for a nice, well-priced adjustable shock. I saved up and got Koni Yellows, and they are AWESOME.

On a scale of 1-10, one being changing a battery and 10 being internal tranny work, I'd give a strut install a 2.7 :exnbp: