After years of driving diesel cars, I bought lately gasoline wagon as Mercedes of USA did not import diesel wagons for last 25 or so years.
Now Premium in area is about 60 cents higher than diesel, not to mention that I know stops where diesel is way cheaper.
Bottom line, cost of fuel for wagon is about the same what for my F350 dually.
Wagon has seat massage, so it still is primary choice for driving.
Sure 6l is not good sample of diesel reliability, but I did drive several diesel Mercedes that were closing on 300,000 miles and did not require any mechanical repairs.
Making calculations how much money you waste driving gasoline got me banned on FTE , so this topic is good test for this place

 

My F350 460ci gas is a great tower, low maintenance, and fun to drive. Sure it gets about 8mpg if hauling anything over a couple of tons, but no diesel noise on the road or smells, change my own oil and transmission fluid. No big or recurring repairs/maintenance. Twice it hauled at 22,500 lbs GVWR a thousand miles each and didn't whimper. Smaller loads of dirt and gravel in the flatbed all the time.

My diesels were a little John Deere dozer and the current Kioti tractor. Love them, the dozer had thousands of hours (meter broke so don't know exactly) and only needed filter cleaning and fuel treatment to keep it running spiffy. The little diesel tractor is just 8 years old and has had no problems or exorbitant costs, just new filters and fuel treatment. But they're noisy and stink

 

Sorry, you're talking about getting a new one - not the same diesels I'm used to.

 

Why is this in the F-150 section? Am I missing something?

I would consider a diesel 1/2 ton truck (RAM makes one) modern diesels are much quieter and cleaner and the maintenance is more in line with gassers. Our farm tractors were all diesel (Perkins M-F {Massey-Ferguson})

To the OP I generally agree with your assertions.