Have you gurus ever seen a 4wheeler with rear leaf springs mounted transversely? The Corvette at one time had a leaf spring mounted parallel to the rear axle - it occurs to me that this might work well for a 4X4 where overall compression is not real important, but articulation is really important.

Mount the leaf pack upside down, and rigidly attach it at the upper center to a crossmember. Mount a shackle at each end of the springs to the axle springpad, and hold the whole axle in place with a pair of link rods. The spring pack would hold the axle from relative forward movement, while the two links would keep it from moving side to side.

Has this already been done and found not to work?

Bobby Long (longfields) has that on the front of his buggy, it works good for our terrain here in WA, it will be interesting to see how it goes @ the hammer's in 2 weeks :D

That is the way the springs were mounted on Fords up until 1948, went to IFS in 49. I have though about it in the CAD in what is left of my mind. Stop thinking when I get to the 3-4 links that you would need.