After talking with some of the non-name brand tire manufacturers setup at the Off-road Expo in Nashville, I went ahead and pulled the trigger on Milestar Patagonia ATR's in the 265x70x16, Load Range D flavor for the wife's Tacoma. Since we now have a dedicated tow rig, I didn't need a heavier rated tire and 90-95% of the trucks usage is Daily Driver duties.
So here's the tire.
Here's the Hercules AT2's after 42,000 miles.
And a side-by-side comparison of new vs old.
So first impressions on the Milestar's after a weekend of driving is they are super quiet, balanced easily, and seem to have good traction on wet/rainy road surfaces. The Hercules were super quiet for the first 35k miles, but were starting to get louder as they wore. They also balanced easily and had good traction on wet/rainy road surfaces. We had a set of Mastercraft AT's on the truck previously that were awful on wet/rainy road surfaces and were also quiet loud.
I kept the Hercules tires and will plan to swap them onto our Dodge 2500. Previous owner put new 225's, Load Range C on the truck right before we bought it. So now it will have a bigger tire, with an appropriate Load Range as well.