The thing about all tire opinions is that there is no baseline for the experience people are describing.
I used to have a square body suburban that everyone borrowed to go camping, move stuff, burning man, ski at Tahoe, whatever. Everyone came back with a different opinion about how it handled, and what it was capable of. This truck had some sort of generic pizza cutter tires with mild tread that seemed ok in the snow.
For a while, the steering wheel screws were loose, kept meaning to fix them, but, it meant there was a lot of slop in the steering. It was fine and manageable to me, but from others:
- it was a death trap, thought they were going to die. Turns out this person was driving 90mph in a 20 year old truck on a tight two lane in Nevada.
- Great in the snow, drove right up the mountain passing all the other SUVs.
- Terrible in the snow, scared the hell out of me.
- Great in the rain, snow and ice for such a long wheelbase (experienced east coast driver that knew their s**t)
- Terrible in the rain (again, a speeder, slow the f**k down, it's a truck)
So, final thoughts:
- each person's opinion is dependent on their skill, experience, and baseline fear level that they can live with
- you can't compare yourself and your experiences with people you don't know
- in general, most tires within a certain category are the same. Dedicated snow tires are the best in the snow and ice, dedicated mud tires are best in the mud, all-terrain tires are a compromise, road tires are a compromise...
- slow the f**k down in the rain and snow, how hard is that?
- if you live in an area that you have to worry about ice, a Subaru with blizzaks will serve you better than a 4runner. Sorry.
- be honest with yourself, do you want your truck to look badass with aggressive tires? Or are you truly being functional. TBH, if you were truly functional you'd have a Subaru.