Quick updates guys. We have had a lot of responses in here. While I do not agree with some of the conclusions everyone has come to, I will say ALL your feedback has been good and has led to a safer overall setup for my 8 passenger JKU.
So seats are in, facing forward. The more I look at the layout, the chances of a slow speed impact causing life changing injuries, the forward facing configuration makes sense. This gives me actually more room between the occupants and anything impacting the rear than the OOB JK rear seat does.
With 8 people, you WILL absolutely approach the cargo limit of your vehicle. I would STRONGLY encourage a braking upgrade. I have stock wheels and as I will be doing a lot of long range highway driving, I have little incentive to lift it, or modify the handling on the highway. So I found a couple kits that will pull my braking capability up considerably and address that issue.
A word on the soft top...with the 3rd row, a folded down soft top will make headroom tight. It can work. I got a boot for my softop when folded down from jeeptopsUSA. It wraps around the softtop, contains it enough for the kids to sit comfortably, and protects it from crumbs, grease, kids playing with it, lol. Was not something I thought of before I got the seats but hey some adjustments are needed.
Getting the roll bar extension as well for added safety.
Couple other thoughts..as other have pointed out, increased capacity increases potential risk. A wreck could hurt more people when there are more in the vehicle. Consider that carefully. That being said, we could go through a million scenarios with small vehicles that are dangerous in a risk, my friends BMW convertible would decapitate everyone in a rollover, my other friends miata in a wreck with a jeep, small truck or larger would likely result in casualties that would not happen in my Jeep. I have been involved in wrecks and have seen what happens when a drunk driver drives right into the back of your vehicle without even tapping his brakes. As one posted pointed out, the result are not pretty and what happens to vehicles is just mind blowing. While I KNOW first hand the possibilities, I also personally believe that if you worry your whole life about that and try to get a vehicle to protect you in all those situations, you will would not but a JKU to begin with. They would never survive the crossover head on wrecks I see 4 or 5 times a year driving rt 24/27 in NC. No vehicle does and no matter how good a driver you are, you are screwed when someone crosses a double yellow at 60 mph on a 2 lane road at the last second. You are NOT avoiding it. You need to find the level of risk that is good for you and your comfort level. And to be honest, to those who disagree with where I set it, to each his own. I won't crucify you for doing what you feel is right, all I ask, is the same from you.
Why does Jeep not make one of these for themselves? Is it only because of safety? Hell no. When manufacturing a vehicle, an automaker has to make a decision based on multiple points. The decision will ultimately be based on can they sell enough of them to make a profit large enough to justify the expense in producing them? In the case of these seats they would need a market that included people willing to buy a JKU with a 3rd row large enough to only seat individual 5'1" or shorter comfortably. Given the company that makes them has sold 22,000+ nationwide in 6 years, I would say that market is extremely small and not worth investing the time in engineering, testing, and modifying the production lines to produce.
Hopefully not to ranty...I do GREATLY appreciate everyones feedback I think I have ended up with a best, safest final setup and it happened because of all your feedback....and I do LOVE getting everyone in the vehicle. It rocks having the whole fam in there.