My advice would be to just run 35s but then again I'm old...
Anyway 35s seem to be the line between having to spend a whole lot more money on a front end vs. just a basic upgraded birf & hi-steer setup. I don't get on slick rock but we have done a bunch of rock crawl comps over the years and this theory comes from what we have seen there.
I actually have a buddy who has run 37s and bigger for years and he is going back to 35s because he and I can always take the same lines and he is looking for max dependability.
My whole group runs 40"+ tires so i dont think downsizing is in my best interest if i wanna follow them around but i totally agree with what your saying.im gonna try and beef this thing up and go wheel!