I am talking about off the line on hard launches, my friend. The OP stated that he does not need lsd with his regular driving habits.
When launching 2wd with open diff you smoke ONE tire. In 4wd you have TWO, double the traction. Obviously, lsd adds alot more traction, there's no arguing that.
I would have never done the lsd, if I was not trying to get off the line faster. I don't have rain, snow or any off-roading to deal with, so I would have had no use for an lsd with normal driving. The only reason I got lsd was because I got tired of one-wheel-peels.
Some people should swap gears for better acceleration, some should get lsd for better traction, some should do both. It totally depends on your driving habits and what you are trying to accomplish.
To begin with, lets get some things straightened out here...
An LSD doesn't add any traction at all, since by definition traction is the gripping power of the tire on the road surface. An LSD won't change this at all.
What an LSD WILL change, is the ability for both rear tires to use the available torque by forcing the torque to be split between the 2 sides of the rear axle instead of letting it all go to one side only.
Changing gears won't add traction either, but it will make it easier to USE the available traction.
Yes, in 4wd, you have 2 tires pulling, 1 in front, and 1 in the rear, but you will still probably smoke one tire as most of the torque goes to the rear axle anyway, but when you launch hard, the weight transfer actually lifts the front end, so if the torque split was even, you'd could actually smoke the front tire, not the rear. If you look at the truck in my avatar, I had to drive it one time in fwd due to a shattered rear driveshaft, and in fwd only, it would spin the front tires at will, since the engine torque caused the weight transfer to lift the front end, unloading the tires enough for them to spin. You could actually see it happening.
If you are launching in 4wd on high traction surfaces, you are not too smart and are asking for a broken drivetrain, since 4wd is NOT supposed to be used in such high traction cases, as it will bind and break due to the minor gearing differences in the front & rear axles.
Lastly, '1 wheel peels' as you call it is the only reason anyone gets lsd....cuz with the traction control on todays trucks, you don't need LSD 99% of the time anyway.
I only have it because it was part of the towing package and to make pulling my boat up nasty slippery boat ramps in 2wd safer. It is also nice when it snows around here.
For off-roading I have a couple of jeeps to use.
