Advance pads etc.
I am a former Advance store manager who currently owns both a standard 95 Taurus (For Sale) and a 95 SHO MTX, so I can give you inside information from the perspective of both a user and a former employee. First off, the Friction Master pads are one of the more aggressive pads that Advance offers. How they compare with other brands such as Hawk I can't say because I dont' have any experience with those brands. The fact that the Friction Masters are ceramic bodes well for their performance as it should provide some fade resistance. Corporately, they guaruntee factory or better than factory performance.
If you are looking for the most aggressive pads you can buy at Advance, they can order you Bendix Fleet Metloc pads which are a high metallic content pad. However, you should expect accelerated rotor wear and all the other downsides of high metallic content brake pad.
In my experience, most of the people who purchased the Friction Master pads were pleased with them. I have sold quite a few of those pads to people looking for an upgrade and everyone that I heard back from was pleased with the results. As for myself, I couldn't afford the extra premium ($$$) the last time I purchased brakes for my Taurus. Of course, that was before I purchased the SHO.
As for the Wearever rotors, they are the only rotors I have used on any vehicle in the last 7 years. I like the fact that they come ready to install with the non-directional finish already on them (Bendix rotors must be turned prior to installation). For the most part, they work fairly well, but they do seem to warp faster than normal on Tauruses and Sables as compared to the other vehicles which I have installed them on. I put Wearever rotors on my regular Taurus about a year and a half ago and I have a slight vibration starting again. One thing I would like to try is installing the 96 and later 11.6inch rotor on the front and see if that provides a more permanant cure to the warpage problem. However, that will have to wait until the SHO needs brakes.
