Your rear SHOCKS options are either standard shock (not air leveling) or air shocks like what came originally on the vehicle, or (spring) coil over shocks.
They read "except air leveling" because your vehicle has air leveling and to keep the air leveling feature you would need to buy air shocks rather than standard shocks, but if you don't wish to keep the air leveling feature then you can use standard shocks.
Do you want to return the vehicle to near factory ride with new air shocks, settle for a less complex, less controlled, and less expensive ride with standard shocks, or a more firm and controlled, faster reacting coil over shock priced between the other two options?
These are only generalities, as you wrote about both comfort and lack of control which many people consider to be opposites, where comfort is about a softer suspension and control is a firmer one, although I do feel that rocking around like you're on a boat isn't very comfortable, that for rough roads you probably want the coil over shocks like these:
http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/moreinfo.php?pk=60655&cc=1119675
Here's a related topic, a forum search will probably find more related topics:
http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=371451
However, there may be other suspension components you also want to replace like ball joints, arm bushings, tie rods & bushings, sway bar bushings, etc., whatever has extra play in it to contribute to the sloppy handling.
