I haven't had any issues with my I4 Defender when driving up hills or through the mountains. Not once have I felt like it was lacking power, even at elevations of over 6,000 feet.

 

I wouldn't necessarily say my Disco 5 with the 6 lacks power, per se - I am able to maintain. But the transmission had to work. Far more than the 8 in my Benz GL450.

 

Thought I would update this thread after driving a 2.0 Discovery yesterday. They are enticing as I seem to see a lot of them for sale real cheap. I like the idea of how much more reliable it will be long term and how much easier it would be to work on. Unfortunately it just isn't for me.

Pros: Perfectly acceptable power when compared to other midsize crossovers. In fact, I thought it was better to drive around town and on backroads. The power comes on quicker and the throttle is more linear than the I6. Makes the car feel lighter and more athletic. Obviously price especially on the used market is a plus.

Cons: The sound... it really transforms the Disco from feeling and sounding like a premium product to feeling and sounding more like a Toyota. It vibrates at idle, it constantly groans and you have to dig deep into the rpm for even moderate acceleration. The lighter weight also spoils the ride quality. The lighter weight gives the suspension a more sport tuned feeling than floater like the I6. The start stop is aggressive and isn't as seamless or smooth as the mild hybrid setup. But ultimately when merging onto a busy highway from a sweeping on ramp, or making a u-turn on a busy 4 lane highway I just didn't feel like there was enough there especially once it's loaded down with people and gear.

In the end it gets the job done. If it was a new lease I probably wouldn't care. I also want to be able to tow my boat with 4 people and while it may do it, it will be a noisy thrashing endeavor.

 

I buy diesels only, (whenever I can) and each time I switch to gasoline car, I make danger merging, as being used to good torque, the gear hunting on gasoline engine slows the car for dangerous couple of seconds.
Anyway, engine aside, you said that 4-banger has no low gears, when I took my D5 on snow lately and low gears were a must.
I tried on higher gear and seems no traction control would work on it. When I finally got to my cabin, I pulled the manual to find display showing off-road setup.
Driver has no control over locking differentials, but having the display, looks like computer is doing good job.
And again, it all worked well only on low range and my feeling was that sand mode worked better on heavy snow, than snow mode.
The 254HP diesel is lovely delivering 22 mpg in city driving.