Yes it's easier but it doesn't crawl down hill at all. It just crawls for a second and the. Just unloads the torque cinverter and I have to ride the brakes the rest of the way. Unless there is a mod to fix that that I haven't come across yet.
For reference I had a green Sahara YJ with 4.0, TH999, NP231 & 4.10 gears with 36" Iroks and thought it was great. Crawled great and on the highway it did 65 70 no problem. Did have to ride the brakes on downhills, but putting it in D1 helped a bit but wasnt that bad all. With 4.88 gears your even better off then I was. BTW an auto is never going to compare to a stick going down hill, just something you have to deal with.
