Ride in the back seat for a meaningful distance and you will understand.  Plus the sliding rear  seats allow better flexibility for people/cargo. This isn’t meant to be a knock on BS, they are just different vehicles.   

Like that they made the floor very low, much like my Honda Odyssey and other minivans.  Step-in appears considerably lower than even FWD ProMaster.  Not sure how rear-door to floor transition is handled on cargo version.

These are things the customer routinely interacts with so it is just mind boggling these are what you choose to save a buck on so you can increase your profit margin.  Did I miss the corresponding cut in price of the vehicle?  It’s one thing to remove options and charge less, but this routine of cutting things and paying more is beyond frustrating, especially when the competition has the respective option. 

Facts are facts.  If Ford were such experts on vans as claimed, they would have not planned and announced eliminating E-Series because they were replacing it with Transit, and then having to take it back when told by many customers that they got it wrong.  Make whatever you want of it, but a manufacturer that know what van customers want would have not made such a miscalculation.

Atkinson V6 offers no real world improvement in gas mileage or performance. The 2.3L Ecoboost I4 gives better MPGs and performance numbers then it, and the Hyundai engine barely outperforms the NA 3.3l V6, which is only found in the PIU. 

Hyundai has been building even larger Atkinson V6 engines for years.  And Stellantis also.  Whether it made sense for Ford with 3.3L, which I believe is in reference to Explorer hybrid, is anyone’s guess, but that doesn’t preclude larger Atkinson engines in future.  As can be seen in data below for Hyundai Palisade, power loss due to Atkinson cycle is manageable.   Ford is far from infallible on technical decisions as proven by previous product issues, plus there could have been other reasons including financial that limited Explorer Hybrid from getting an Atkinson upgrade.  Only suggesting you keep an open mind that just because Ford hasn’t done it yet doesn’t mean larger Atkinson can’t or shouldn’t be done in future.  

I like how practical the interior is.     

That is a pretty rich take   From Wikipedia:     If the market is being satisfied by product that doesn't need any real updates done to it, why are you going to change it? I'm pretty sure it is very profitable for Ford and they don't have much competition.    As for the Transit being a failure, its not going by sales numbers:   Calendar year U.S. sales 2014 20,448[68] 2015 117,577[69] 2016 143,244[69] 2017 127,360[70] 2018 137,794[71] 2019 153,868[71] 2020 131,557[72] 2021 99,745 2022 99,382 (inc. 6,500 E-Transit)[73] 2023 129,009 (inc. 7,672 E-Transit)[74] 2024 152,738 (inc. 12,610 E-Transit)[75]   E-Series:   2005 179,543 2006 180,457 2007 168,722 2008 124,596 2009 85,735 2010 108,258 2011 116,874 2012 122,423 2013 125,356[38] 2014 103,263[39] 2015 50,788[40] 2016 54,245[40] 2017 53,304[41] 2018 47,936[42] 2019 45,063[43] 2020 37,001 2021 37,122 2022 32,150[44] 2023 42,957     If anything the Transit is doing far better job and the E-series cutaway and bare chassis is just adding to it. 

If by “out of step” you mean too expensive for Mexican buyers who have lower average income, makes perfect sense.

Wondering if anyone can speak to whether the Lux Leather package is worth it on the Platinum. From what I can gather, it replaces the ActiveX with real leather. Is this really a noticeable difference for most people? Are there any other benefits, like the seat heating/cooling works better? Any difference in the seat shape or massage functions? I don't care whatsoever about the door panel inserts. If this is simply switching the seating material, I think it's a $1,700 I'd rather avoid. If there's something I'm missing, I'd love to know! Thanks.