Do coil-overs ride better than regular shocks?

Oftentimes yes, but not necessarily. There are a number of factors to answering this question. What terrain (ie on/off-road), what speed (ie rock crawling or open desert), and what is your perceived better? Are we comparing twin tube shocks like the NX2 or monotube shocks like the FOX 2.0 Performance Series (PS), 2.5 Performance Elite Series (PES) or 3.0 Factory Race Series (FRS) shocks to the available 2.0 PS/2.5 PES coil-overs. At the end of the day, it comes down to the shock body and features, the main benefit the coil-over has is its compact packaging of coil+shock allowing for easier/unique mounting solutions as well as the ability to easily adjust ride heightat each corner based on postion of the preload collar.