You're right about the Grabbers having the snowflake. Missed that in my research. I gave up on them before checking that because of their supposedly bad wet traction. In Europe every tire sold has to be tested and labeled (A,B,C...F) on fuel efficiency, wet traction and noise. For wet traction a grade lower means 3 meters more stopping distance under some standard load on wet tarmac at 50 mph. The Grabbers are rated E while the KO2 is rated B so I skipped on the Grabbers.
OK, so I got these installed and have a good bit of info to share already, being that my Liberty is literally my rolling office full time for work and also my family ride. I spend more time in my Jeep than in my house.
With that said, addressing the wet traction grade is going to address both of your questions really by the end. Initially, in just looking at them I could not imagine the stopping distance being 12 meters more on these vs the BFG unless the mileage warranty is there because of a harder tread compound. That was my initial thought.
Now that I have ran them mounted I have an additional thing I can say that probably plays into this... which gets into the section width vs height thing.
The Grabber AT2 in 235/70R16 is true to spec on height of 29" I've checked. However, having them mounted in replacement of previous 235/70R16 in the same application... I have realized you can only really consider the section width aspect so much. With a grain of salt if you will you might say.
The reasoning is this is the width measurement to the bubble apex of the sidewalls. This is going to vary depending on the wheel width and tire bead design, and doesn't have much relationship to TREAD WIDTH which isn't a specification although it should be.
I think that plays a role here. There is going to be some variance in actual tread width on the road and therefore contact patch, and these were most likely also tested in a size that is not snow flake marked either which is not fair to the sizes we would be running on the Liberty. Kind of an unfair comparison.
The General AT2 also features a recessed bead relationship to the sidewall much like many ITP brand sport ATV tires (which I also run). How this works is the bead is recessed back so that when the bead seats, the sidewall section actually pops out over top of the rim lip all around it in an o rather than just pressing against the inside of the rim. This protects the rim awesome and also keeps crap out from between the lip of the rim and bead of the tire. But it does alter how much sidewall bubble you have (lessens it).
All in all, unless with use I encounter something I really don't like in the future that is surprising, these will take the place of all future BFG purchases for my usage. I have a sweet "hookup" on BFG tires from the guys I do tire business from. But still yet I got the AT2's which I like more and saved $244 + tax to boot, and also got a 60,000 treadwear warranty. That is really hard to argue with.
With that said, in the 235/70R16 sizing on the AT2 on the stock steel wheels, hindsight is always 20/20. I will typically differ from most and prefer the look and ability of the skinny knarly looking tire over a big fat tire. I'm not a mud bogger for fun anymore, so for what I encounter I typically get better bite out of the skinnier tire.
But, hindsight is 20/20 and if I could go back now knowing what I know now, I would instead be debating between 245/70R16 and 255/65R16. The reason is I was already leaning towards going with the 245/70R16 or 255/65R16 in these to start with. But I could only find a couple Liberty owners running the 245/70R16 size and couldn't get any of them to respond about any clearance or rubbing issues. So I was standing at the counter at the tire store shooting from the hip as far as ordering a size and just chose not to gamble.
I haul quite a bit inside, sometimes more than others, and today was a more day. If I could go back I'd go with a wider width for the hauling because the tread width of these is only 7.5" and with the bead design and wheel width I can see the loading on the tires visually. My previous tires of the same spec size I did not see the same look. Those had a standard bead and a wider tread width with a less square shoulder to the tread. So the tire didn't squat in the same way where you could see the loading as bad.
I checked clearance on these 29" tall tires where people say rubbing comes into play. I have like an inch of clearance at the unaltered pinch weld with the wheels turned to the worst clearance angle, and a bit less at the front of the wheel well. I am confident a wider 29.5" tire would have cleared no problem and and even wider 29.1" tire probably would have as well.
So if you get these you will probably want to go with the 245/70R16 or 255/65R16 if you like the more chubby bubble tire look.