If those trips through the Mojave desert involve driving through deep sand, the Bilsteins should help prevent wheel hop. I wheel at a place called Spring Creek here in Texas that has some areas of deep sand. With the stock shocks, I was getting so much wheel hop in the back that I would have to let off the gas. Once I let off the gas I was usually stuck!
I thought it was going to take add-a-leaves, or new spring packs to solve that problem. However, the over-sized Bilsteins seem to have pretty much eliminated the problem. They also make the truck ride alot better and prevent bottoming out.
I agree with the original poster. I would get BFG AT's and Bilstein shocks as my first mods. The BFG's are a good compromise between offroad and highway driving, and the shocks made a bigger difference than I ever thought they would.
Alot of the folks on this board have bought oversized shocks for the rear, which requires ditching the rear sway bar. I did it and have never missed having the sway bar. The part numbers for the shocks are on this board somewhere.