First off the purple perch HAS TO be above the A-arm like in the last pic.
And having play in the spring under droop is OK, remember - weight on wheels, the strut compresses and all that play is gone and the spring will be tight.
See this pic - when jacked up the helper spring is completely uncompressed and the main spring is actually a little loose. WOW you can see in the pic it is fully compressed so the strut is compressing 3-4" with the car on the ground.
But you are not going to know how much you need to lower/raise it until the wheels go back on and you take the car off the jacks. Then you have to jack it up, take the wheels off, adjust it, put the wheels back on, lower the car, check the ride height and repeat over and over again until you get it right. Or once installed - take it to a shop to corner balance and then align and let them do it.
Here is what I do, because I have the same problem as you with my JRZs. I put a jack under the brake rotor or the wheel hub and just jack it up compressing the strut and then lower my perch down to where I need it. Or sometimes if I am wearing shitty pants, I just use my thighs and push the rotor up to compress the strut and adjust my perch down.
Now when you lower the jack the bottom perch (purple) is going to be resting/hitting against the top of the a-arm and won't let it droop further than that. And like wise, you can't adjust the purple perch down because it's hitting the a-arm. But like I said above, use a jack or your legs and push up on the rotor to compress the strut (all you need is to push it up a little bit) so that you can then lower the purple perch down a little more. That's OK because as we said, with weight on wheels the strut is compressed and it sits 3-4" higher
and the only time it would need full droop is if you were pulling a Dukes of Hazard.