unfortunatly i'm not into the tube designs much... leaves too much open areas. a bumper is meant to protect against an impact from anything. a tube frame will not protect against a large branch, pipe, poll, rod... what have you from puncturing your radiator in the given situation.
the difference between the 12 and 9.5 is very small. we've got both here on two other vehicles *my old man's trucks* and both are strikingly similar in size. the 12k is only a couple inches longer from the larger motor. so the difference between them wasn't load capacity for me, it was a price difference... why settle for the 9.5 when the 12 is only 80-90 bucks more? might as well just fork out the last bit of cash to get the heavier one... that's how i looked at it.
i may end up building my own bumper it seems. i have the greatest interest in the ARB bumper but there's flaws there that i really see needing improovement... like the dinky little lower lights and whatnot. what i'll probably end up doing is making the load bearing parts of it from the normal steel and then for the outer shell use some thicker but lighter 6061 alluminum or maybe go all out and use 7075 (6061 being cost effective and cheap to fix/replace, 7075 being stronger than the steel framing of the bumper but is expencive to replace and almost impossible to repair since it can not be welded).
