You can get plenty of high quality height- and reach-adjustable quill stems.
My favourite adjustable stem is Gazelle's Switch stem, which I used on a utility bike to get my back aerodynamically flat to set my personal ton-up record. It has three great advantages. It is toollessly adjustable; you just flip a lever and you can adjust height, reach and angle of handlebars. It doesn't break your fingernails because it is competently designed by proper industrial designers. For the same reason, it is beautiful. I have one but it is not for sale. The designers (Gazelle farmed the job out) are at
http://www.vanderveerdesigners.nl/en/our-work/projects/625 and this retail store
http://en.hollandbikeshop.com/branded-bicycle-parts/gazelle-bicycle-parts/gazelle-bicycle-handlebar/gazelle-stem/gazelle-adjustable-stem-switch-3-22-2mm-230mm/ has them in stock. A Dutch retailer I've found amenable to finding me rare components and posting them to foreign parts is
http://stores.ebay.nl/BIKERS-STORE; they've had the Switch adjustable quill stem in stock in the past and therefore know where to find you one. Your wife might like this one best of all, especially as she can make adjustments herself until she is satisfied, or make different adjustments for different purposes -- I do when I use that bike, for instance lowering the bars when I'm speeding into a winter headwind. Photo of a Switch stem on my Gazelle Toulouse at
http://coolmainpress.com/BICYCLINGgazelletoulouse.html Notice that in my photographed applicaiton the stem is set near vertical to bring the bars high-high-high above the saddle and right close in; this was a bike I bought specially for sitting on bolt upright until the physios could undo the damage a previous, badly fitted, bike did to my back. On this same bike, by flipping a lever, when I want to crouch down low, the bars were moved to below the headset and in the same motion the bars were turned to set the grips near vertical, way out over the lamp. It's an incredibly versatile stem. Only availble in a quill fitment, last time I looked.
Kalloy makes a good if somewhat industrial adjustable stem; there are spanner versions and a version for which you don't need tools. The Kalloy branded one is cheap; others, like Richey, are several times the Kalloy price and are no better, in fact precisely the same thing, only label-engineered. Kalloy makes version for Ahead steer tubes and quill stems.
I don't have one -- Duh, I have a manual version on one of my bikes, see the last photo at
http://coolmainpress.com/BICYCLINGsmover.html for the Kalloy at full extension. Mine seems to be an extra-well finished version, possibly a special order by Trek, on whose top Benelux-only bike it is fitted. I admire Kalloy gear (for the same reason I admire Shimano gear: cheap and good), and have several other Kalloy components on expensive bikes because they work so well.
A solid adjustable Ahead stem for utility, transport, heavy duty, heavy touring, and violent sporting bikes is a Cane Creek copy made in the Cane Creek factory for the German distributor Humpert inder the names Swell, X-Act and X-Stacy. (They also sell Cane Creek's legendary S6 headset, made for them by Cane Creek, for a fractiong of the price of the same thing with a Cane Creek brand on it...) I have a Humpert adjustable stem; it came on a Utopia bike, than which none better. (Utopia test all components to destruction, but they don't go much on flash. They're a bit like the German version of Thorn, but without the cost constraints; some say Rolls-Royce is the better comparison.) The Humpert version has the advantage of being a bit cheaper than the anyway unobtanium Cane Creek version; it's not actually cheap, but on close examination and in use I thought it very good value. Here's a whole list of versions you can drool over:
http://www.humpert.com/en/bikeparts/suche/produktsuche/artikelnummer/?begriff=swell As fitted on my Utopia Kranich at
http://coolmainpress.com/AndreJute'sUtopiaKranich.pdfHowever, if your wife's bike is a utility bike or a shopping bike or gets parked often, all these perfectly good stems would be a silly purchase. The only stem that you should consider is the adjustable n-lock. This would give your wife adjustable height and reach -- and for the same price a convenient, most superior, bike lock that doesn't require her to bend over inelegantly. The bike lock works like an American car's breakaway steering and makes the bike unrideable, and makes it appear to be broken. Mine in the photo below is not the adjustable version but the adjustable version is owned by several other forum members.
The main thread on the n'lock on this board is
http://www.thorncycles.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=3930.0 and you can use the search engine other threads on it and bits where it crept into other discussions. If you decide on it, return to us for instructions on which n'lock to buy for your wife's bike as the difference between the models is pretty esoteric.
Hope this helps.
