1. It's biased more toward the rear, not the front.. It's a direct coupler to the
rear axle, with a viscous coupler that can relieve driveline stress toward the front.
2. Absolutely not... The AWD system in the V8 had NO electronics to control it. How could it have more electrical problems. Most likely they are confusing it with the auto 4WD in the V6 which can have issues. Most people call the V6 system AWD because they don't know any better. The V8 Awd does have issues with the viscous coupler if the truck isn't maintained well, (Running mismatched tires, not changing T-case fluid, etc) but for the most part it's a good working system.
3. They don't make a V8 4wd Explorer... Only 2wd or AWD.
The full time 4WD in my Jeep Grand Cherokee was pretty similar except I had the option of neutral and 4Lo. Other than that, the full time 4WD was awesome in snow/ice...actually it did great in stock form offroad as well. The full time 4WD made take offs even in good weather nice and smooth no tire spinning, just power to the ground...it made tires last longer as well as you weren't spinning them in gravel, or sand trying to get moving on non-paved roads, as well as the sand they'd put down for traction in the winter.
With your explorer, someone mentioned that there weren't any electronics to worry about in the AWD...there weren't the T-case just allowed power to go to the front and rear axle, there weren't any sensors or electronics to control anything on them which made the system pretty reliable. Between that and the 302 engine it was a great combination from what I recall. Now the V6 explorers with the control-trac 4WD or whatever it was called that had the 2WD, 4WD auto, and 4WD low range had a few issues...I've never heard of issues with the AWD V8's though, other than some viscous couplers wearing over time...which is pretty minimal if you maintain the vehicle and don't try using different sized tires on different axles. All the tires need to be the same size, and type otherwise it really messes with the AWD system and will overheat the viscous coupler wearing it out very quickly as a result.