Re: price
stadium ford in Rutherford NJ service dept opened the book and showed me the times. for all 4 corners it amounts to 5.5 hours @ $85 per hour. plus alignment $75 flat which I will obviously do anyway. you do the math
Re: other parts need replacement
from my experience, OEM rear sway bar bushings are shot at 60K, same goes for links. these are easy to do. front bushings are probably also shot, but they are PITA to replace and it will take a long time and shop will charge you for that.
I have SVT swaybar w/ about 20-30K on it. Both stock sway bars were rusty. '98 looked much worse than '96 for some reason. sway bar brackets definitely don't age well
somebody else w/ more front suspension exposure will hopefully chime in too
from what you are describing I would take a long hard look at the A-arms too.
