I agree that for the average consumer the a car chassis is fine. Unfortunately it’s not going to haul a large horse trailer over rough terrain and we don’t force a special permit for full sized trucks or have sufficient gas taxes to discourage them.

As to why Ford etc is targeting regular people with these monstrous trucks it’s both profitable and current regulations promote their sale. You can dig into the history of these regulations but as far as I can tell it’s a mix of trying to appease businesses and a specific voter demographic. Call it corruption or giving people what they want, it’s not going away anytime soon.