Yes, it has auto-locking hubs. I’m not sure if they’re vacuum actuated or electrically engaged. 4WD is engaged with a rotary knob/switch. It has the usual 2H, 4H, and 4Lo choices. There’s no way to put the transfer case in neutral like you would on older trucks with mechanical lever engagement.
My old 97 F-150 had a limited slip differential it came in handy a few times. Last year was driving down a snow covered road before the plows had been through. Another truck came up the road headed towards me, the truck was in the middle of the road. It stopped as I approached and motioned me to go around, the driver seemed to think that he was on his side of the road, having no interest in trying to explain that he was taking up most of the road unnecessarily, I opted to drive around him. I went off the road (onto my yard) and I ended up in the ditch. The other truck continued on. I tried to back out with some success, one front wheel (open front diff) just spun. Having both rear wheels get to the pavement (after digging through the snow) was key. I was able to quickly extricate myself. Had the truck had an open rear diff, I’m fairly certain one wheel would’ve just spun, and I would’ve had a more difficult time getting unstuck.
I had a 1995 Bronco with auto hubs. It had Ford’s Touch Drive push button 4WD. The hubs, surprisingly, were never a problem for me. What was a problem was the electric motor on the the transfer case would decide not to work from time to time. The remedy was to have the vehicle running (in park), grab a stick/golf club/broom handle and craw under it and give it a few whacks whilst another person was in the vehicle repeatedly pushing the 4WD button. It was even more inconvenient than having manual hubs.
That does sound worse than turning a couple of dials on the hubs. I’ve had several mid 90’s k1500’s. The actuator in the front differential was prone to fail on these. Easy to replace, though.
The newer Ford’s have some issues with IWE’s (integrated wheel ends). I believe they’re vacuum operated and it’s not uncommon for them to sort of try to half way lock in if they lose vacuum from somewhere, causing a grinding noise.
Not huge issues with the auto hubs. But the manual ones, well - they pretty much either worked or hard parts were broken. Kind of like push button transfer case switches vs. the old style lever.
I’m sort of surprised automatic hubs would be reliable. B/c of where they are located, with all the road grit and grime getting blasted at them. Automatic transfer case shifting seems like it would be less of a design problem, b/c that occurs inside the transfer case, an electric motor pushing the two shift rods back and forth I presume. If the auto hubs fail, I wonder if there’s a manual-control backup? Where you can get out & twist knobs on the front wheels? If so, then the worst case scenario is just that it works like it did on older trucks, which is a little inconvenient, but not a show stopper.
Speaking of design issues, my older Ford truck’s transfer case shifter has always been somewhat balky and difficult to engage, especially 4wd lo. I did some research on this recently, and it seems like others have the same problem. Not just Fords, Jeeps too. The solution seems to be to switch to a different style of lever, which is actually two levers. Each operates one of the shift rods independent of the other apparently. The upside, you get some new functions, like a front wheel drive only mode, and a lo-gear version of rear wheel drive only mode. The downside is that some positions of the levers can cause damage, such as if you have the front wheels in lo gear and the rear wheels in high gear.
As far as the rear differential. There is a difference between an e-locker and limited slip. For on-road use I would prefer limited slip over my e-locker. My truck, when unloaded, will easily chirp the rear tires. With a little rain, with light excelleration, will spin the driving wheel. If I lived in the snow belt would most likely add several hundred pounds over the rear axle.
@texases is right, auto-hubs have been around for decades now, they are pretty reliable, as for having a manual backup; the Ford Super Duty trucks (at least up until the mid-late 2000’s) have hubs that are both automatic (vacuum engaged) and have a manual backup where the driver can get out and engage them the old fashioned way should the automatic-locking feature fail. The F-150’s haven’t had manual hubs from the factory since, I want to say 1996.