As far as I know the only bars PST has sold in that timeframe were 1.03's. Firm Feel, Sway Away and BergmanAutocraft sell larger bars, and MP used to sell larger bars like that.
KYB's with factory torsion bars don't feel terrible, because you're experiencing the combination of too soft a spring with a really stiff shock. As far has handling goes its not ideal, but the stiff shocks band aid the soft torsion bars. When you combine them with stiffer springs, their cheap internal construction just gives a really harsh ride. I ran my Challenger with KYB's for most of the 70k miles I put on it, with 1.12" bars, blaming the bars for the stiff ride. The bars are fine, the KYB's are trash.
For large torsion bars, the RCD Bilsteins are probably the best bang for the buck. There are better shocks, but the price goes up fast. They worked well with the 1.12" bars on my Challenger, as I said earlier the comparison between the ride with the KYB's and the ride with the Bilsteins was night and day, a massive improvement with the Bilsteins.
Bilstein Shocks - Front - A Mopar Body - Bergman Auto Craft
Bilstein Shocks - Mopar - A Body Rear - Bergman Auto Craft
I totally understand that not everyone wants to run 16:1 manual steering, that's fine. Where you lost me is when you're saying that A-bodies don't need power steering, than also say that 16:1 manual steering on an A is too heavy. Seems like power steering would be the solution to that problem without sacrificing steering ratio don't you think?
A 16:1 box with the fast ratio pitman and idlers out there would be 12:1.
But the fast ratio power steering box itself is 16:1, then uses fast ratio pitman and idler arms to get to 12:1. The box itself for the T/A and AAR cars was still 16:1, they were different because the inner stops were reset to match the travel of the longer steering arms. All of the factory power steering boxes for these cars were 16:1, if you put a standard pitman arm on a T/A box the ratio is the same as the standard power steering boxes.
The aftermarket Borgeson power steering box conversion gives a 14:1 ratio, but that's not Mopar parts.
