I think you hit the nail on the head. Most of JK's in my neighborhood are just as you described but some are riding on Dana 60's, not Dana 44's. It's just hard to compete with a JK on 39's with front and rear lockers, 4:1 tcase, highline fenders and swaybar disconnect. These rigs are all to common where I live and I see dozens everyday. They are beautiful rides and amazing rock buggies. The Montero is offroad capable but in a different way. The Montero was built for speed. That's why it was so successful in the Dakar Rally.
I agree with what you originally said.
The Montero, IMHO, is a fantastic "all-arounder." It can do a LOT of things very well, but there are other vehicles that because of their design or level of aftermarket support, can more easily "specialize" in rock crawling as compared to a Montero. Just from a design standpoint alone, the Montero being an IFS and LWB vehicle, relatively heavy, and having the lowest amount of rear axle ground clearance compared to it's competition - it's clearly not designed to be a rock crawler.
That's not to say that 2 or 3 people from the 'Wire can't build up very special Monteros that excel in rough terrain, but that's more the exception than the rule...and there are some compromises with those setups too (DD'ing 37's on a 4.9 rear end for example...sure, you can do it, but it's an absolute pig and the fuel mileage in stop and go would be about the same as an H1...lol).
I looooove the Montero for it's all around capability. The main drawbacks for me, when loaded down and on an off-road trip, are the lack of front end articulation (duh) and it feels under-powered when loaded. It also feels a bit heavy, especially when compared to something like an XJ Cherokee (which is about 1,350 lbs lighter than a Montero, and enjoys an amazing power/weight ratio as a result). But, these aren't terrible drawbacks. Every vehicle is a compromise, and I think the Montero does it better (the least amount of trade-offs) than most of the competition.
