The e-brake was not on, so I don't know what we were doing wrong. We just looked at it for about 10 minutes, put a spring compressor on it and there was just a LOT of energy left in that spring and it wasn't coming out --- I guess we just chickened out.
So, in the interest of saving time [and safety] we just decided to drop the axles and sway bar, which wasn't that difficult, just unexpected. I read a couple blogs where this was not necessary before the job, so I was a little surprised.
The easy part of this job was the front strut replacement --- I was expecting to have to take the calipers and rotors off, but that is complely unnecessary.