I have no idea why people lift their trucks to the extreme - I don't own a truck or understand the culture well, although I am familiar with the vehicles to som

I have no idea why people lift their trucks to the extreme - I don't own a truck or understand the culture well, although I am familiar with the vehicles to some extent. My take is that most people who lift their trucks do it more for looks or status than for practical reasons. Having a small amount of lift and larger wheels with offroad tires probably does help with practical capability. You can see this with newer trucks that manufacturers produce in offroad trims (example https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/models/f150-tremor/ https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/models/f150-tremor/). But larger lifts are indeed impractical for offroad capability since they would alter your center of gravity and other aspects. Most serious offroad vehicles have good clearance but not extreme clearance, since they are also accounting for numerous other factors to give the vehicle reliability, safety, and offroad capability.