Here is the thing, there is NO perfect tire! What you need to do is to list what is most important to you and find a tire in that range. Is best overall performance what your looking for? Maybe tire wear? A tire that will reduce load to the drive train? A tire better for rocks and stronger sidewalls, general hard pack dirt and higher speeds, sand washes? Everything is a trade off.
I too like the Bighorn style of tire for Plaster City / Superstition where we do most of our desert season riding. The reason is Superstition offers every type of terrain in one place, Hard pack, Sand Washes, Sand Dunes, Rock etc.. Superstition/Plaster City has it all and you will ride through it all in one ride! For a general purpose tire where I know I need to run 50% in sand dunes and 50% in hard pack flats on the same ride or weekend, the Bighorn style tread has been the best choice for me. A tire like the Bighorn, will be lighter, the tread design will scoop the sand better, yet still get me through the hard pack with no trouble. But the casing of the tire is more exposed to punctures, and you will not get the mileage out of a Bighorn style tire vs an AT style tire.
There was discussion in another thread awhile back where paddle tires came up, and guys like Bajaxp & Joey both mentioned how they prefer the Maxxis Bighorn tire in the sand dunes vs a paddle tire. Reason was they felt they could go everywhere the paddle tire went, maybe not as fast, but have better whipping & sliding ability, and with a greater reduction of drivetrain stress and saw little to no belt failures because of it.
The all terrain style tires have a tighter tread pattern and are going to give you more protection from punctures, but even aired down will not perform good in the sand. I have yet to be sold on the theory of the steel belted tire for a UTV. Maybe with these new bigger, faster, heavier UTV's coming out, it will make more sense. But even BFG moved away from the Steel Belted tire with the new KR2 for the class 10, 12 & 5 cars, as the lighter Nylon Belt tire has proven to be better for those applications. IMO a Steel Belted tire, will be more puncture resistant, but it comes at a price. Weight! The A/T tires are already heavier with the multiple ply's, and tighter tread patterns, then when you add steel belting, to me it just seems to be allot of unnecessary weight added to the drive-train.
When it came to running down in Baja I knew I wanted a tire more durable then the Bighorn, but did not want the weight of a full blown A/T light truck tire. What I found worked great for me was the GMZ Cutthroat. It looks very similar to the Yokohama Super Digger 3 tire, which I was very familiar with in racing. The Cutthroat has a rounded tread profile, and was also a nylon ply belted tire. I do wish the tread lugs were a bit tighter, but overall I was very happy with them, for the application.
So in the end if you are looking for shear performance and to reduce drive-train stress as much as possible then I would look at a lighter (Nylon Ply) tire for general desert usage. You will lose tire wear and are going to be more susceptible to sidewall damage, if you like pounding & sliding into rocks. If tire wear & the strongest sidewalls are at the top of your list, then you will most defiantly want a A/T tire. You might see a performance loss and more stress on parts as you are turning a heavier tire, and you will most defiantly see huge performance lost in soft loose sand & dirt. Again there is no perfect tire for all applications.