Almost certainly right about the three amigos, in my own experiences off-road the TC starts modulating the brakes on the spinning wheel(s), and finding grip where other vehicles might not. Essentially it's actually easier to off-road a stock or mildly modded (mud tyres, ally sump guard and steel tubular "exhaust guard" - not even lifted at this time) freelander, than the unmodified manual discovery 300tdi which was on BFG all terrains.
I'll preface this by saying that part of the different experience might have been down to the tyres, as the freelander was on Khumo KL71 full mud tyres, which were surprisingly soft compound and extremely grippy on hard surfaces, whereas the disco was on the original BFG all terrains which are a harder tyre and offer less grip than you'd expect on rocks and roads. But tyres aside, I suspect the electronics in the hippo had a huge part to play in the differences between the two experiences elaborated on in the paragraph below.
There were times I could get the freelander into positions where the disco couldn't go, in particular there was a ledge on one of my trails that I could manoeuvre the Freelander to damn near touching, then apply full lock towards the ledge, then creep towards it and once the tyre had touched the vertical face of the ledge gun the throttle, and it'd pull it's front right wheel up onto the ledge, I could then get the back right onto the ledge, wind on a lot of right-hand-lock and the front left would climb the ledge. Because the freelander is an automatic, this was simply done by keeping the throttle in and the vehicle would use the ABS to shuffle power around to find grip, and climb the ledge, without fail.
The disco, on the other hand, would require a bit more effort and would only maybe manage this manoeuvre, approach it, in low box, Centre Dif Lock in, position it the same way, and it might do what the Freelander did, or there was an equal chance that it would start spinning wheels when the front right contacted the vertical face, of the ledge. With it not having the electronics / traction control, if the disco had a spinning wheel, with CDL in that axle was neutered, stuck, but the freelander used the ABS to give the offending spinning wheel a reprimand that says "Hoy! stop spinning!" and the excess power is transferred to the other wheels intelligently putting the grunt where you've got the grip. The result was this one section where the freelander could always clear a knee high ledge, but the disco might get stuck at it.
Coming on this trail the other way, the freelander still had the advantage, it's got a two inch longer wheelbase than the disco has, and a significantly shorter, like nigh on nonexistent, rear overhang. Effectively being a bob-tailed vehicle, the hippo could descend off that ledge fairly cleanly, and do so attacking the descent "head on". Whereas the disco could, by virtue of it's long overhang, get itself stuck - or at least try to hang up on the tankguard / chassis rails / towbar. So I'd have to "walk it down" one wheel at a time and once the front axle was down I'd be committed and would have to gun it a little to be sure to have enough momentum to pull the back end along if it was scraping the ledge.
That was a long time ago, the 300tdi was since sold on to a mate, and the trail now has a fencepost right in the way of clearing that ledge, but the fact remains that our traction control cannot be underestimated.
