I have a 1993 4Runner. About 150K miles on it. Took it off-road (no road) just once. It's basically a car I use when I go up in the snow in Tahoe.
My other car has a much higher "cool" factor. But that car would not handle snow very well and would probably be too damn low to even handle a road with 1 ft of snow. And good luck with snow chains - I usually don't have to use them on my 4Runner because I have snow tires on them.
I'm not a 20 year old anymore so looking cool is not important to me anymore, especially with cars.
As another poster said "huck the faters". My 2nd gen 4Runner not being cool is not that important. That 3VZE engine though...I do have a complaint about that.