I vote long travel. I built a 99 4runner with TC long travel kit/rem. Res. Coilovers and triple by pass shock with remote res. It was sick and fun as beck in the sand. I'd be nuken 45-55 over big whoops next to built sand cars. Never really jumped it though. It drove pretty good on the Road steering was super tight. If I were to do it over I would keep the factory balljoints instead of the hiem joint upgrade. And if it was sloppy with the stock balljoints then upgrade.
I'm too lazy to find it now but the build thread is on yotatech.com under swapped89 total Chaos 3rd gen 4runner or something like that.