[robnolimit]

Good one, right on the money. As you change the angle of the shock away from the true path of suspension travel, the dampening rate drops. Here are some calcs from old notes.
Shock angle - Dampening
0* 100%
10* 96%
15* 93%
20* 89%
25* 82%
30* 75%
35* 66%
40* 59%
45* 50%
You can see that the farther you lay a shock over, the more rapidly it looses effective dampening. These factors also hold true for spring rates, such as on a coil over shock. Understanding these relationship can help a chassis builder tune a vehicle suspension. Heres an example. Lets say you want the shock to have 200lb/in/sec (simplified term) dampening rate, but all you have available to use is a shock with a 300lb/in/sec shock. If you were to mount this shock at a 35* angle off of the true suspension travel line, you would reduce its effective dampening to 66%. So, 300lb/in/sec x 66% = 198lb/in/sec dampening rate. This relationship between mounting angle and dampening rate can be a good thing, for those who understand it, or a bad thing for those who don't.