G'day fellow Bluenoser.
Before you start chopping and hacking, think about your intended use.
If you want an average use street driven truck, the 2500 running gear is fine. Dirt roads, fire roads and logging trail are fine too. Power line cuts are usually ok, until you get into the large bolder style cuts. NSpower crews tend to leave the majority of the cuts pretty messy. Passable, but messy.
If you are talking bigger the 35-ish tires and large amounts of lift then a solid front axle starts to make more sense.
If you intend to crawl through the NS woods it depends on where you are. Most places I go IFS works just fine. If you plan to crawl around some of the rockier/mossier/slipperier trails you may want to start thinking about a soild axle for the articulation and the ability to take the shock loading that typically happens in NS wet/rocky conditions.
If you plan to go boggin' (different than what the southern gents call mud boggin) I would suggest a solid axle and the widest, largest, most aggressive tires you can afford.
Boggs are what they would call swamps down south except with more mossy/tundra like stuff in it. It'll grab ya and suck ya down in short order. Nasty stuff....
