This locker problem is sidelining my plans for getting the Foxes re-tuned and the fronts installed. But I was able to do a little experiment yesterday, hoping to get a fresh perspective.
My current pair of Foxes in the rear have an 8 point compression adjuster. When I installed these a couple years ago, I played with the adjusters but only around town. I settled on 1-2 which are the softest settings. Yesterday I cranked them up to 8 and drove the 2 hours each way to the trail and the trail itself in the hardest setting.
I'm mad at myself for not doing and not focusing on this earlier. The highway ride was great. It was good before, but this is better. Body roll was noticably reduced. On the trail, I noticed that the movements during articulation were dramatically more calm and controlled. This difference is similar to the difference between a disconnected front sway bar and an Antirock (and specifically a tighter set Antirock). And this is only with the rear pair.
All four corners being this controlled can only be an improvement. Brake dive will decrease and body roll will diminish even more. Rock crawling and articulating will be even more calm and controlled.
When I got back into town, I was able to feel an increase in the small event road noise compared to what I am used to with the soft settings. In my case, I will need to settle for some kind of comprise between the high speed and low speed control.
My take away from this is that I dramatically changed the ride simply by changing the shocks and leaving everything else the same. Shocks certainly do matter for rock crawling and the control of movement just like sway bars matter. The DSC shocks that Blaine, Tox and others are using may be an ultimate solution for this type of build that spends time on the street, highway, rocks and rough unpaved roads.