And likely necessary due to legal issues. All the foreign car companies are going down this road sooner or later because the cars they sell in China will need to run Chinese developed OS and be connected to China based servers and while US in particular will not allow either. Since all new cars are software defined, it's basically impossible to make a global model that can sell in China and US at the same time without substantive engineering divergence. 

Given the differences between the Chinese and US markets, it actually makes sense now. 

I think it is built off the Mitsubishi Triton platform, so it is all Mitsubishi. They build a Nissan version of the pickup called Navarra for Asian markets only. I also think Mercedes had a version of this called X class, but that failed on the market. Montero/pajeo is the only SUV based on it.

The new look does lend itself well to that more boxy shape.

One of the articles was saying that element was a call back to a previous gen that had an exposed roll cage or something?

I don't mind it, I also think it is partly styling desperation to make a 2 box vehicle look different, like the black spilt line in D pillars on some products. 

I like that but I think Lincoln will stick with the design language they have now. That is unless they try something fresh with this model. I haven’t gotten AI to produce a great side profile yet, but it did an OK job by using the refreshed Nautilus here. I’m actually more curious of what they do with the interior.

My only complaint is the chrome trim on the exterior behind the second row doors, everything else looks great, especially the interior. The leather wrapped center console is a nice touch.

Lot of retired people, or people who have 3, 4, 5 different vehicles. These guys are putting on like 2000 or less miles per year. Crazy. And they trade these things in every 2-3 years.

Yup, Ford doesn't seem to make decisions that make sense (i.e. global platforms with region-specific products)