Your post is one I will agree with.  Not everything by Toyota is great and not everything by Toyota is bad.  For a work truck I cannot see a Toyota or a Nissan being better than Ford, Chevy and (gulp) Dogde.  But......if I were going to run up and down the road with some fencing supplies and tools checking cattle and irrigtion systems, it would definitely by a smaller Toyota or Nissan.

When you look at the trade-in value of the old pickup, sometimes it is better to keep it for those few times you need the heavy duty pickup and just do a cash deal on a good run around pickup.