The great debate of juice or air.
Air does have lift restrictions, but so do hydraulics. An airbag like a Slam Specialties bag that can take a ton of abuse, can be used in different positions to get great lift from it. With dros, you cant run anything bigger then a 10" cylinder in a lever setup, without a chance of bending a cylinder b/c of force. The bigger the cylinder, the less force it can take. So if you setup that 10" cylinder in a 2:1 ratio with a powerball on the bottom, you can get 20" of lift.
An air bag that is as well built as a Slam bag, you can stick in 3:1 ratios. You cant with a firestone or airlift bag, b/c they will simply pull apart. Also with a bag being in tighter ratios, it takes more psi to lock it out, but it takes less to get to ride height. If that makes sense. Here is an example. My Nissan has RE7 slams in the rear in a 2.5:1 ratio. Without shocks, 300psi of nitro (not sure what was actually in the bag, but i know not more then 100-120), the back of my nissan would get 15" of lift with shocks. without, it looked like a grasshopper. Here is a picture of it with shocks, fully extended. (i am losing in the 5" inches of lift range due to it being setup for 22's and i only have my 17's on it)
Dros can ride great and be completely self maintained, but you will have quite a bit of money into it. You need good accumulators, good coils, a street charger (or 2, depending on the amount of batteries you run), shocks. The thing about hydraulics is they ride the same on the ground as it will 20" in the air. An air bag's spring rate changes with the PSI of air in the bag. The bigger the bag, the less air it takes to get to a certain ride, combined with the right shock, will provide a lot better ride then a smaller bag.
It doesnt cost nearly as much as I think you think it does to hop on bags. My 91 s10 hops, yeah, its only 6" but i was running 3/8 valves, 1/2 line and only 200psi. I also dont build to hop. The nissan running the same setup, but with nitro set at 350, would hop all over the damn place. I could of went to bigger valves, or dual fill valves, but that isnt what I want in my truck.
Get some 1/2 valves, 5/8 line, a bottle of nitro gen, you'll be hopping nicely. If you want to air dance something, you'll need to set it up right. matt's gauge s10 that dances on air has like 600psi or something crazy.. it does okay. there is a black mazda that kool laid of <st> built that bunny hops a good 4 feet on 450psi.
With air ride you do have to have a big tank to play, or multiples. I have a 12 gal with an engine driven, which will fill that 12 gallon in seconds. I have a nitro bottle when I want to play. The problem with a lot of people that have air, they get the smallest system, just so they can have air on their truck. You see a lot of 5 gallons with a single viair 450. not bag for someone who never plays, but that a 5 gallon at 150psi will barely get an s10 off the ground enough to drive. If you had a 5 gallon with dual 380's or dual 480's.. you'd see 200psi and the fill times are a lot quicker. Hell just investing some time and money into making a store bought york work (i'm not a fan of the air lift york setups, seems since they're built by another company, they just fall apart, my oreilys bought reman'ed ford compressor has NO problems), they can have great psi, and fill time is remarkable.
But anyone who installs or has air ride knows, when you want to play, go pay 11.50 to fill a nitrogen bottle and get to playing. You have 2500 in the bottle and whatever your regulator will let you go to play with. I have a Harris 1000psi regulator. Its never been over 350 though.
You mentioned possibly doing the combo of both. If I could talk my fiance into letting me do her car, I have a hybrid that I am wanting to try out. It takes some space, which is why I dont wanna use it on my nissan (it will take up a lot of the bed). but you mount an airbag of your preference on the end of a hydro cylinder, preferably say 10" cylinder, you do this twice for the front.. so you have 2 bags and 2 cylinders remotely mounted in your bed.. then you mount 2 say 10" cylinders in the front where they need to go. You fill the line and the cylinder in the bed full with fluid. It is a closed system, it needs no pumps, nothing. You get just an air setup. When you inflate the bag, it will push the cylinder in, pushing the fluid into the cylinder in the front, raising the car/truck. You get the lift of hydraulics, the ride of an airbag with a shock mounted somewhere and you get the cleanliness of air.
To get the lift you want in your picture with air, I would try this to see what you come up with.
Get an RE8 slam bag. Mount it as close to the pivoting point as you can. See where you're at there with no shocks. Its going to take some psi to get it in the air, b/c the bag will start to bend. So throw a nitro tank on there with a regulator and test and try.
if you have 45" long bars, if you mount it 5" in from the center of the front pivot, that is 8:1. stroke of an re8 is 9". Since the bag wont stay straight, you wont get the 72" of lift that theory says you should have. With the bowing, you'll get less. But worth a shot since its just to promote. Dont know about driving on it.
one more thing before I end this long rambling non-sense. The guys that just look lowered when they're fully locked out, are usually only running over axle setups, or they're running 22's or 24's on their minis. Its hard to untuck a 29" tall tire and drive it daily.. the ass will sway in the wing regardless your setup.