yeah i know what you mean, i brought 4 shocks for the rally car and it cost only $400 bucks, but the quality is what you pay for.
suzuki use a lot of trd stuff in there super 1600cc cars, like trans pumps, bushes, etc.
we've tried other shocks, like bilstien and koni, but alwways felt that the trd units were better, just really suited the car.the results show that,at jimna it finished 4th outright, not bad for a ke70 that's only 1540cc.
if i do need anything in the future i'll keep you in mind, always good to have someone who knows the product and is a corolla fan.
have found that there's a lot of trd stuff on ebay US and the prices are pretty good too, i would buy anything stuff from AUS they just ask to much for it, it's not that i don't think it's worth that money, but every dollar we save, is money spent towards competing with the car.
we're lucky, we have an asain freind who goes to japan a lot, loves corollas and has freinds there who can bid on stuff in yahoo auctions(japanese ebay) for us.
i'm coming to NZ sometime this year, so i might catch up with you.