Overlanding Options for Newb

Started out with a ground tent. Waking up in the middle of the night with water running in the tent sucked. Moved to a tent on the flatbed trailer. Better, but hated setting it up (old school tent, not one of these fancy self-setup jobs). Moved away from tents into travel traileror toy hauler. Super comfortable, but very limited on use. 2 years ago, wife wanted a RTT. Built a rack for the back of the Tacoma, just high enough to clear the fridge, and bought a used SB Gen 1. Have spent a lot of time in it the last 2 summers. I do like having the ability to just go check out some random road to see where it goes, and just being able to set up camp anywhere I want. We have woke up many mornings to the truck being surrounded by cows. Thankful to not be sleeping on the ground. I had to upgrade the sleeping pad because Im old and need a little more padding. We have a very short bed, same as OP, so space is a premium. We keep a dry box prepped at all times. Bed has the fridge, a cooler, food box, grille, 5 gal fuel, and 5 gal water pretty much all summer. I take it off during the winter months, store it on a shelf in the garage.
It is a PITA to have to tear it down to go somewhere, but we don't usually stay in one place for more than a night anyways, so that isn;t usually an issue for us. The weight up high is not really as noticable as I expected. Makes the truck handle differently, but not enough to say its a deterant.
Having to use a ladder for access is a pain, and not being able to stand up to get dressed sucks, but those are really the only two drawbacks that I have. I tried to minimize the weight and height by building the rack as low as I could. The top of the RTT stowed is just about even with the top of the cab.

I think any option you choose will work, but like stated above, they all have their advantages/disadvantages. I think in the end, use what you have, or can easily acquire, and get out and use it. If its not ideal, try something different. I completely hated the idea of putting a tent and fridge on my truck, but now that I've done it, I think I may become a closet overlan....Vehicle Based Adventurer. @notajeep would be proud

I know that the GoFast Camper have a unit for the F-150 similar to this video... this allows you to climb up in the bed and open a door in the bottom of the tent to climb into it. then move the hatch back so you have full room up there. When you want to stand up you can pull the floor over and climb down into the bed of the truck. I have used my rtt a few times (see video 2) and I hated the climbing down to go bathroom so someone told me to just take a spare gatorade bottle up with me, use it then empty later in the day... My Ikamper2 folds up in mins and weight about 160lbs. I have my fridge behind the drivers seat, load the back of the JL with fuel and recovery gear, use the passenger side rear seat for storage of food and clothes, table, chair. I bought the Milwaukee packout 4 drawer to put small stuff in.

I got down the rabbit hole of Go Fast Campers/Super Pacific/etc

My largest issue with Go Fast is you got to pull the floor to get down, I'd prefer something where there is always room like this:

If Im going to have a base camp the canvas tent and cots are my go to. If I’m going to be moving around then I run the RTT. I leave the RTT mounted on bars (Rhino rack bars I think) and can drop it on my truck or take it off in less than a minute. The pulley system mounted to the garage ceiling let’s me do this by myself. Like others I pull up the off road level screen in the truck and call it good enough. my only complaint about the RTT is the mattress, I’m a side sleeper and my hips get pretty sore by morning. I’m considering upgrading the mattress to a Hest RTT mattress. I’ve heard good things about them.