I'm with "z". I havae only owned 4x4 as I thought "Ohio snow". But last year I wanted to teach my sone to drive a stick and didn't want to spend over $4k. I looked at A LOT of crap, rust buckets, dash lights on and "minor problems" truck. My brother has owned several truck all 2wd and he said the same thing, if you don't do heavy 4 wheeling 2wd w/weight in the bed is fine.
Finally, found a nice std. cabin,5 speed ranger, roll up windows, but no dash lights, very minor surface rust and NO minor problems. It needed tires but that was easy enough. I put 180 lbs. in the back and rode around all winter with no problems. In the spring, I took the weight out but it doesn't ride as nice
Good luck on your hunt
mace