I have the Full Traction drop bracket and dropped pitman arm on my white JK and it does the job well. The TeraFlex drop bracket is real nice too as it has a brace that you can weld onto the opposite side of the frame. I like dropped pitman arms but, if you want to get away from it and are willing to ream out your steering knuckle, the TeraFlex draglink flip kit is a decent alternative to a dropped pitman arm.

I hear ya on the breakage thing - god only knows I've broken a ton of things over the years and oh how I would prefer not to anymore. Like you, getting away, camping, hiking and photography is my first love and rockcrawling is just icing on the cake