The long-bed was popular back when people owned a truck as an extra vehicle/work vehicle only, now many use their truck as their main vehicle and have need of carrying others.
If you look at the creature comforts of older bench seat trucks (bare-bones) and the trucks sold today, a truck today will have everything an SUV will have in terms of comfort and maybe more.
The backseat is passable with my dog and kids, but barely. If they were able to take some room from the front where there is no engine and give me both a reasonable bed and a crew cab I would be happy.
A lockable frunk is pretty attractive though so that you don't have to worry about leaving tools in the bed.
My favorite configuration is:
- 8 foot bed
- extended (not full) cab
- rear doors are "suicide" doors
Our ranch truck is a Silverado 1500 in that configuration and it is nice to have optional seats but not lose the 8 foot bed. Suicide doors allow you to open the entire vehicle up with no pillar in the way and I love that.
Chevy no longer offers this but I think Ford does, currently ...