Ride and handling of static drop vs airbags

[Overdriven]

Thanks for the responses guys. Matt thanks for the videos, love your truck and it looks like it's doing well on the course especially considering the small number of mods. I've all but settled on the Ramblers after seeing your truck around here. How is the ride in your truck?

I'm just up in the air as far as which way to go. In my mind air ride adds things to go wrong and there's already some wiring and plumbing issues (zip ties everywhere and no grommets anywhere on the lines or wires) to sort out from the previous owners installation of this cheap kit with unknown bags. Plus a valve that has started to stick and there's no way to drain the tank currently. I never intended to deal with any of this, was just going to ditch it but the truck does ride nice. So after going back and forth between this nice riding 49 year old truck and my harsh riding 10 year old XRunner daily driver I'm worried about static drop ride quality.

Btw I've got about a $6k budget for this round of mods. Want to do a suspension rebuild, disc conversion with 5 lug conversion so might as well splurge a little for 4 wheel disc, obviously wheels and tires, sway bar(s) and carrier bearing replacement. Might be able to sneak some tubular arms in there but a full suspension kit from Ridetech or No Limit or a new air ride setup is definitely out of the budget.