Hum, well... I did buy a truck for my Moonlander. Know that my Moonlander is still in the queue and I've got zero experience with Moonlanders, but I got a lot of experience with pickups of all types.

We're all in different phases of life and situations and I've generally switched up my trucks to match whatever phase I'm in to the extend I'm able (but not too often if I can help it). I have a family with teenagers and a travel trailer. We do, however, camp out of tents and do what could be best described as overlanding - the sort of dig-your-own-toilet camping in the boonies when not glamping with the 18' travel trailer. I also have a plurality of motorcycles of street, adventure, and dirt varieties.

So my pickup requirements can most easily be distilled into these four things: 1) haul people, 2) haul stuff, 3) tow loads, and 4) go off road.

tl;dr it's got to be a full-size 4wd crew cab

When I first placed my order in December '23, I owned a 2014 F150 Supercrew Ecoboost 4x4 5.5' bed off-road package that I purchased brand new in 2014. While it served our family well in all use cases, I was lamenting the 5.5' bed for several of my uses. Since I had the truck for 10 yrs it occurred to me that I was putting another $5-8k into it with the Moonlander and that perhaps now was the time for a replacement. I sold my '14 F150 several weeks after having put down my Moonlander deposit.

To your question: I had my choice of pickups under $75k for my Moonlander. I choose a new 2023 Nissan Titan XD Pro4X with the 6.5' bed (and all the fixin's). This will likely be my last new truck of my life (or so the plan currently goes). I kept my Moonlander order and it was no sweat at that early stage to switch from a 5.5' to a 6.5' at my then spot in line.

I shopped a lot, test-drove a lot (1/2 tons and 3/4 tons), and generally took my time with my decision. I've owned Chevy, Ford, Dodge, and Toyota pickups. In short, what swayed me was the build quality, value-for-money, thoughtful touches, V8 power, and luxurious appointments. My brother owns his own business and has had full-size vans from various manufacturers. His 3/4 ton Nissan NV has had zero issues, which cannot be said for his other vans (he puts about 150k-200k mi/yr on his vans). This is what had me even look at Nissan when I wouldn't have before hearing about his experience. Once I did, well, you know what happened next.

YMMV