Your question is fair and more complex than people realize. Or at least fail to realize before they are looking retirement down the throat and the ugly beasts called "longevity risk" and "sequence of returns" risk come charging out.
But first things first. I am now nearing 60 and have been running a lot of numbers. Leave your money in an IRA account. Even after 59 1/2, pulling it out, paying taxes and reinvesting does not work - notwithstanding the lower tax rates for qualified dividends and long term capital gains. A very few scenarios show a very small benefit, but IMO they "prove the rule". Put the money in, let simmer.
You might want to read work by a guy named Pfau. His thing is studying how to structure self directed retirement accounts to generate income while controlling for sequence of returns and longevity risks.
As others have pointed out, an IRA is just an investment account. In fact you can setup a brokerage account as an IRA, which opens up the world of investment options (some restrictions do apply, option trading is limited for example).
One option not mentioned so far is that you can roll part (or all) of your IRA into a qualified single payment immediate annuity. In plain English, buy yourself a pension. Annuities have a bad name because of all the creative garbage that has been put out over the years that uses the term, and financial advisors don't like them because they lose the 1%/year that they would otherwise get churning your account. But economists do like the traditional, simple single payment immediate annuity.
So suppose you have 1.2 million in an IRA. You want $80,000 year, and your basic must-pay bills are $35,000/year.
Social Security might be $20,000/year (don't worry, it will be there). You use $300,000 from your IRA to buy SPIA which will give you $19,800/year as long as you live. So there: $39,800/year out of the box -- no cat food on the menu.
You still have $900,000 in your IRA to invest and draw on. You also need use some of that as your inflation protection. But since you now have a floor under yourself you can invest this a bit more aggressively. In any case, a 4% withdraw rate adds another $36,000/year. Be aware however that recent studies suggest that having a set of rules that allow for a higher withdraw rate during up markets and a reduced rate during down markets significantly improves performance and reduces risk.
We are just at the edge of the wave of middle class people retiring on defined contribution accounts (IRA/401k). It is going to get interesting.