Around here a few of us head out and run the rocky canyon bottoms out by Hover. It's fun, and is close by.
yup, the 1st gens are getting harder and harder to find that haven't been hosed up. And then if you find one it either requires a bit of work or you pay through the nose. I lucked out and found this one that had been sitting in a field for a few years. Then engine was torn apart with pieces everywhere. It had been suberged, pulled out, and then just sat. I ended up putting a new 22R in it, along with another transmission as the old one had rotted innards and growled/howeld. Also had to put in a new radiator. Found another parts rig, and took the semi-bench seat, and some dash parts. It's on the road now, and I've been putting miles on it so get a bit of faith in it <grin> and to work bugs out of it. Gonna put 5.29 gears in the rear this weekend and pull the front drive shaft so I don't inadvertently screw up. Once I know I'm happy with that gearing and tire size then I'll buy the gears for the front. I'm fortunate in that I have a son-in-law that is a total Toyota freak and an excellent wrench to boot, along with a few good friends. We have a decently equipped shop to do our stuff.
2nd gens are cool rigs too, and there's some good stuff there, like fuel injection.

Not so cool, IFS. However that all depends too on what your goal is for your truck. You can't do much of a lift on IFS trucks before you really start getting into reliability issues. Most will just go for a straight axle swp/conversion. The downside to that is it costs a few bucks. If you are just into a mild lift and ocasional wheeling then an IFS may be fine for you. If you are looking at serious off-roading, then you really need to be looking at either finding a yota with a straight front axle, or figure on spending a few bucks. Make up your mind before you start playing the lift and big tire game so you aren't wasting bucks on something that isn't where you are heading.
While starting off from stock is cool, it isn't the cheapest way to go on some things. All this cool stuff costs bucks. There are some deals to be made out there on used trucks that other's have worked on. By the same token, you can also get burned on other folks project trucks too. The beauty of the yotas though is that you can get parts. About anything on them can be fixed. With a welding rig, plasma cutter, chop saw, press, and a few other things you can build about anything. Lots of the yota's have bodies that look a bit on the rough side, but there has been some super attention paid to the running gear, skid plates, reinforcing and strengthening the frame and such. They are easy trucks to work on and that is the beauty of them.

And most guys (and gals too) that run the yota's are more than happy to sit down and talk with you and tell you where they made their mistakes and what they would do over if they were doing it again. Talk to them before you start in. It will give you a much better appreciation of what works, what doesn't, what is realistic, and stuff like that.
