I would definitely decide what your MAX size tire will end up being before you buy axles. I made some mistakes with mine & wish that I'd gone wider than 61" WMS to at least 63.5-65" WMS for better clearance. But as you know it's a fine line of tradeoff between width for stability & clearance & then being able to fit thru the trees. I can't comment on the strengths of the new JL/JT axles but American Iron does offer deletes for them.
Agree with figuring out your max tire size first. My mistake was thinking I would stick with 35's. My front Dana 44 is TJ width. Then I went with 37's and went with JK width and bolt pattern for the rear. So now have TJ to JK adapters in the front. I want to eventually replace the front with a 60 to fix the width and ball joint issues.