Milo, not disagreeing with you, I can only witness this from my Eastern suburbia, where the majority of trucks are used by landscapers, and the rest by you and I, with a few smatterings of tradesmen, many of whom are now going to the Sprinter/MB style vans. We are even seeing some pretty neat new Ford vans around, lot of Euro influence.
When I went to look at the Frontier, I test sat both the two door and the four door. The rear seats in the four door were such penalty boxes and cramped all around, clearly not made for 200+pounders like myself. Probably fine for sub teenagers. And the four door version only came with a small bed. I think if you are getting a truck, and clearly none of us totally agree on what a truck is..., nor should we have to...

it ought to have a decent sized bed in it. Six foot minimum. Seven foot is better. That extra foot doesn't weigh much, and adds a lot of utility for those who need a full truck of hay or mulch or whatever.
And if they had offered a Nissan diesel in the Frontier, I would have paid up to three thousand more for it, if it gave me at least a 25% increase in towing capacity and mpg. Without that degree of benefit, I don't see the value. The stock V6 is strong, but the torque of a diesel is what we want when towing. And I towed with the Frontier gasser just fine. And expectations have to be reasonable for three grand too. This is is not an 800 foot pound application, but what? 400?
450? I can see the banner line by Duramax:
FIRST to 500 in a compact truck!
But please GM, don't charge us three grand for $999 worth of oomph...
I got a Golf TDI for the same reason, well almost..., as your motorcycle.