i personally prefer direct A-arm mounted shocks (but keep in mind that my background is mainly offroad...)
the inboard shocks do have the advantage that you can play with the shock & spring ratio and locate the less then aerodynamic C/O`s out of the slipstream (if that is important to you)
however, the cooling airflow to the shock is greatly reduced (again, that is maybe not so critical in an on-road car)
and by adding a pushrod and rocker you increase the moving/oscillating (or un-suspended) mass of your suspension,
as well as add many heims & bearings that could develop wear/ endplay/ noise over time
(i guess i`m a KISS guy
)
imho the A-arms in the second pic look a little sketchy to me (too many adjustable points)
unless you
really need all that ability for fine tuning i would stick to a solid welded lower A-arm.
the lower A-arm takes the majority of the forces so i prefer less parts = less points of failure
many of the Cycle track vendors sell the balljoint ring/sleeves individually ... so it is fairly simple to build your own A-arms
on my little project i plan to design my frame points around pre-fabricated upper arms like this Afco ones ....
....simply for the fact that they are fairly inexpensive and save me the time and hassle to build them (and a jig for repeat-ability) myself
plenty of adjust-ability for me ... at least for a "non racing" application
again, just my 2 cents