Drewdog, you are correct with the spherical joint being lightly loose. When i worked at Quickco motorsport we never used them and bought local spherical joints that were of better quality, compared to rally design ones that are easy to move about, the ones we used were very tight .
Paul, there is next to no noise or harsh ride with eccentrics tops. Nolathanes can die (perish) after a while, my mk1 escort zetec has dead Nolathanes in the rear bushes and is listing to the left lol... back to motorsport rubber for me , i only use Nolathanes on the front swaybar mount , tramp bars and leaf pads.
Sorry to hear they dented your car , that's gotta suck !

Yep. That’s my opinion also. New strut tops look ok 👍

Yep. That’s what I purchased