^^^ not to mention the vastly better tyre wear and associated lower suspension wear they must be enjoying.
Daf’s in particular have really small tyres on the small wheel mid lifts, on tight truns fuly loaded they reach all sorts of angles look like they’re going to be dragged off their rims.
I agree about the direction stability, i went from a Volvo FM with fixed but raisable small wheel mid lift to a Scania with full size twin steers (both modern design car transporters) worlds apart in stability handling and control, plus where the Volvo could suffer the tail wagging the dog syndrome sometimes severely the Scania didn’t budge.
I’ve not yet seen a small wheel mid lifter that steers, don’t know if anyone even offers it as an option, probably not as small wheels are all about weight saving for max weight work, but an added bonus of the small wheels is more room around the chassis for auxilliary tanks and any specialised equipment such as hydraulics/blowers.
The other good thing about lifting axles, on my present steed which is just coming up on 500k, still have over 70% of original pads on the lifter, in theory should make a million before reline on that axle.