So, my 2023 Nautilus with 2.7 could be a concern over the the wet belt?  

The one thing Slate has over this, is potential Dealer Markup.  If my memory is correct, (ha that's a laugh), Slate is purchased by bypassing dealerships.    $28K, we'll take care of that!  How's $35K sound?  

Fathom is definitely better than ranchero, however, ever since Sherminators typo (fantom), I keep thinking Ford Phantom sounds so much better than both of them.

Overall, calling it fathom was the right move. A neat sounding, fresh name for a super innovative and groundbreaking product. Using a heritage name for that always felt kinda off. Plus ranchero is up there with Thunderbird for being a pretty clunky sounding name imo.    This would have been Capri or mustang mach-e all over again had they called it ranchero. A bunch of enthusiasts bitching about it ruining the ranchero nameplate. Giving it something new was the better approach.    Hopefully that means other future Ford icons introduce more new names instead of relying on heritage alone. 

I did? Man must be getting old 😛  

You also said no way it would be $30k. 😎

Our city has full sized trucks and suvs and the county has explorers.  I bet none of them would go back to a car.

Not quite true.  They have both dry and wet clutch versions.  The dry clutch works fine with lower power engines.  The problem is the fiesta and focus engines were over the limit.  They should have used the wet clutch version but that didn't meet mpg targets so managers ignored it, got their bonuses and said screw the future issues.

The answer is here    

Does not apply to me, we are close to empty nesters that downsized from larger SUV's and the wife much prefers the size of the Escape. What the ratio of buyer types I do not know.