To those of you noticing more noise as tires wear, can any of you comment on whether you are rotating them at all or not? It seems like most people no longer rotate their tires... There is really no good reason a worn tire would make more noise a newer one aside from tread wear and cupping. I would guess that rotating them every 10k or so would greatly reduce that tendency...
FWIW, I just put a set of 265/75R16 AT/3's on my little dump truck. I paid $540 for the four tires delivered through tirecrawler.com, and $78 to mount an balance them on empty wheels. Cooper has a $70 rebate, so they'll cost me about $550 total. Getting the LT version would have cost me about $100 more. I didn't see the point for my use.
That said, a neighbor just put 285/70R17 AT/3 XLT's on one of his work trucks and they do look good. He said they were almost $1000 installed by a local tire chain!!
Though I love the Maxx's on my my personal truck, I may go to a 265 or 285/70R17 AT/3 XLT when thy wear out... I'd be especially keen on AT/3's if Cooper released them in a 255/80R17... (Are you reading this, Cooper???)