> Recently there is evidence Toyota is either struggling on this metric. Quality problems or deliberate design intent change?

I'm hoping they fix this. There's almost no other reason to buy a Toyota other than this reliability reputation.

It seems like the way to go now is a naturally-aspirated Subaru, which I ended up after all the Toyota dealers near me treated me like a chump (which apparently is common; Toyota doesn't have as much "say" over their dealers as other similar companies afaik). Subies have basically been iterations on the same engine for a decade (the FB series), and the brand cannot afford to do much goofy R&D. They're also still dealing with the head gasket reputation despite that being >10 years old at this point (almost 20).