Phuck.
My 1995 4x4 Ranger curbed at 3,600# new. A new Tacoma, similarly equipped, curbs at 4,500#. I often am at the scrap yard and watch trucks go over the scales while waiting for my money. I see LOADED 70s and 80s F150s not even hitting 5,000#.
I learned to drive a stick in a 1974 620 Datsun pickup. That truck was a 3/4-ton, rode like total crap, and had a curb weight of less than 2,400#. But it was a perfect truck. I worked for a lawn care service and we loaded it with tons of bags of fertilizer and other nasty chemicals, and towed machines behind it. It did everything we ever asked to do. At 2,400# curb weight.
I hate the way it is all going. When I was at that job in the mid-80s, my boss bought a new S10. It had a 2.8 V6, squishy suspension that couldn't carry anything, the interior was plastic and nasty and was falling apart within the first year. Everyone hated that truck--and I use the term loosely.
Why do we have to get stuck with a plastic fancy-pants piece of shit ith no real bed, can't carry anything, Cadillac-grade interior, truck? I power-washed the inside of my 2000 E350 last week. You can powerwash the inside of a 1974 Datsun pickup. If you powerwash the inside of a 1985 S10, the yard will be full of plastic puzzle you can't solve and carpet.
The last good truck I had was a 1977 F100. The inside was the same as the outside. Sky blue steel and rubber.