Yeah, there's a bit of history to my tyre choices. I'll probably bore you, but here goes:

I grew up on a sheep station about of 870 sq miles. I used to think my BSA B33 was the best dirt bike in the world when I was a kid. We used any tyres available over all kinds of terrain, and ran them till they were bald or fractured from rocks or big hits. Sometimes pain happened.

Later, I competed in winter reliability trials, usually on 70s and 80s big singles, where we were restricted to trials universals only, no matter what the weather. Pain was inevitable, but lessened as we learned to ride the worst goop with these tyres. It still happened, though. But in the dry, they were brilliant. Even on bitumen.

I relatively recently retired from the life of a mustering contractor in northen South Australia (hence the TTR250). The only reason I used knobbies was simply because of their tougher sidewalls. I could ride the bike with a flat if there was no time or equipment to fix it. If you were careful, a tyre would still be useable even after riding with a flat for about 50km. Just fit a new (hd) tube and away you go. Again, simply due to economics, we would use the tyres until the knobs were worn down to the casing. Traction in the dry was better with a worn tyre than a new one for general everyday use, even in sand. A new knobby skates around in normal going, and digs into sand too much. Pain resulting from worn tyres was minimal.

I learned from the above that in the dry, chunky tyre tread is overrated. However, I am a HUGE fan of new knobbies in the wet. No substitute is even close. But my default is dry, dusty going. So no knobbies for me. And no pain, I hope... although one patch of wet clay almost brought the whole issue to grief on the ride, the Tenere's inherent stability saved us. Gotta love that bike. Everywhere else, the tyres were totally fine and hooked up well. It's not an enduro bike.

Sorry about the book; just wanted to explain.