First off, ride quality is 100% subjective. Second, a majority of your ride quality comes from the coils you're running - shocks just dampen hits and smooth out your ride.
With that said, if all you do is drive around on pavement, most any shock including an old school hydro like a Rancho 5000 will give you a nice ride. If the only kind of wheeling you do is flexing out on the rocks, they will do just fine too. Where something like a high end monotube shock will do better is in driving hard and fast over rough terrain. In these conditions, they'll do a better job of keeping cooler for a longer period of time and because of how they're designed with a separate nitrogen gas chamber, they'll do a better job of resisting cavitation or shock fade. Remote reservoirs will do this even better. If there is a downside to monotubes is that most tend to be a bit firm for daily driving. What makes an adjustable shock like the Rancho 9000 nice is that you can set it at a soft setting for daily use and then firm it up for off road use. If there is a down side to that, it's that you have to actually get out and adjust each one every time you go from one condition to the other.