I find it difficult to understand how wheel rate could go up as the shock is laid over further. Here's an example of why. Let's say you have a shock standing straight up and down. We know it's going to have full leverage over the suspension arm. Now lay the shock completely over on it's side 90 degrees but don't give the arm a way to transfer motion 90 degrees to it. The full laid over shock now has zero leverage on the arm. It has no wheel rate. If you lay the shock over 45 degrees it too has less leverage on the arm than a vertical shock and hence a lower wheel rate.

Shock mount location on the arm has a larger effect than shock mount location on the shock tower. If you move a shock outwards on an arm, it has more leverage. This is a higher wheel rate. If you move the bottom of the shock inwards, your wheel rate goes down since leverage on the arm goes down. By moving the top of the shock and slightly changing it's angle, you are fine tuning the wheel rate. Let's say one location on the bottom is very close to where you need it and the other location is very far off. Obviously you use the closer one. Now you fine tune the upper position until you get it where you want it. Your frame of reference is the other end of the vehicle. That's what you are trying to match.

Again, don't over think this. Pick an end and work at it until you find a match. If you don't fine one, play with the other end to see if you can find a match. If you can't, change springs at one end and against keep trying.

It is very possible to figure out a formula to help you predict what spring rates will match at each end based on location and vehicle center of gravity. Craig has done that but at a considerable amount of his own time. At the very least he'll get close since advertised spring rates aren't always what they truly are in reality. They should be close though.

What I did on my old RC10 is to find a shock mounting location and spring combination that balanced. I'm not going to get into where the shocks were mounted since my suspension isn't even the same geometry that it was when stock anyways. In my case it was AE blue rear springs (2.55 lb) and AE green front springs (3.5 lb). The ratio between them is a spring rate that is 1.37 X more in front than rear. Weight different front and rear and shock leverage over the arms is the reason why these aren't the same or why a higher spring rate isn't used in the rear. Keep in mind this is using these exact same mounting locations and the exact same vehicle weight and distribution. If I want to change spring rates and use the exact same mounting locations, I already know that whatever springs I choose must also use a 1.37 or near ratio for balance. Let's take this further.

What if I want a lower wheel rate. Let's say instead of the AE blue rear springs that I want to go down a spring rate from them. That means I'd be running AE gray rears which have a rate of 2.33 lbs. I need to take that 2.33 and multiply it times 1.37 to see what fronts balance them. 2.33 x 1.37 is 3.19. AE black front springs are 3.2. Bingo. I just lowered my wheel rate and didn't have to change shock mounting locations at all. Coincidentally it just so happened to be going down to the next lighter spring offered by AE for both the front and rear but this isn't always going to happen. It will happen less often than more. Now keep in mind since the given spring rates and the actual spring rates may be a little off, I may have to move the top of a shock over a hole to get true balance again but this is close enough.

Keep in mind I am only using 1 shock mounting point as an example. I haven't figured out every possible combination on that car yet. There are tons of other springs that fit my shocks too so I'm sure there are many other combos out there. I've just shown you 2 that work out on one of my personal cars.