For a stock suspended, street cruiser that has no race plans, Monroe or Gabriel gas shock are a decent step up over stock oil shocks to provide a noticeably improved ride without being harsh or costing a chunk of money. These are still good for one step up from stock rates, but they must be gas charged. Once you get up to 1.0" t-bars, they won't have enough control to provide the best results and you need to prepare to fork over some money.

With that said, I will point out that the shocks are the heart of a suspension system and they define its control range and performance. Like a camshaft controls the performance range of an engine, so do shocks make a suspension great or lousy if they are not all set up to compliment each other.