overland = heavy and slow
I agree with keeping the tires smaller and the lift lower. With overland, you need to be thinking more about heavy loads and long distances, and less about rock crawling. When loaded down with food, water, beer, fuel, rescue gear, books, etc, etc, you want your center of gravity as low as possible. You might not be able to tackle the Rubicon, but you can almost anywhere else safely and comfortably. That also tends to keep you more stock, which makes it much easier to find parts.
I would spend my time/money:
+ getting the longest range fuel tanks possible;
+ think about _living_ in you vehicle for months on end - have lots of storage handy, for books, maps, hats, glasses, binocs, hand cream, sun cream, pens, journals, etc etc;
+ think about your cooking situation and being able to eat really well - for example, we use a camp stove oven which folds down really small - once the store-bought bread is gone, my wife bakes more - she uses the hot engine compartment for rising and then bakes in the camp stove oven
+ think about comfy sleeping - padding and really warm sleeping bags
Others may have a different set of priorities, but my experience is that for a few weeks, anything flies, but after a few months, those small luxuries really do help. Notice that all that stuff adds up in weight. So I have made the choice to carry all that crap, but skip some rock-crawling.
If interested, follow my build-up sig link to see what I have done with my LC.
