I've only ever dealt with piggyback style systems in turbo'd petrol cars. And in my opinion I feel this is the best way to go as there is so much flexibility in the tuning. You can save various types of tune. Economy, power etc.
This was the way I was thinking of possibly tuning the defender. Most systems come with a hand controller that monitors all systems as well, so you can display them in real time. I'm just not sure if anyone has been able to hook one up to a defender without issues.

