Slate have done this and it's really quite compelling. You even get window winders.
Oh, and every year there's "only three days left to invest!"
* Bed size is just five feet
* Towing capacity is just 1000 lbs
* Not AWD
None of these can be retrofitted after the sale.
Where I live, it'd struggle to be called a "truck" with these limitations.
Not everyone wants to spend 40-80k on a bloated luxury-truck-ized F150 when they only need to carry something oversized maybe once a year.
I like the "starts out cheap, then upgrade it later" premise of Slate, and I like that it's electric, but it'll only really be a toy with the limitations I specified.
But if you have even just those once-a-year "need a truck bed" needs the gap between "SUV with fold down seats" and "actual truck" is pretty substantial.
I think the set of truck buyers with either:
* just occasional needs for a bed, without a need to put sheet goods flat or such (if you have that just get a minivan these days ;) )
* a fashion-driven desire compared to a van or SUV vs a practical-driven one
is substantial compared to the set of "needs a professional-grade truck" buyers.
The set of professional-grade buyers hasn't changed much in thirty or forty years, but the former two sets have exploded.
Though yes, I could see it being less important if that's not an issue in your area.
I never had a manual window winder fail to work, but electric window buttons breaking or the motor getting stuck (e.g. in icy conditions) has happened at some point in every car I've owned.
The convenience factor hugely outweighs the rare failures for me, but I could see why someone buying a Wrangler for its intended purpose might actually prefer the manual option.
How old are you? Back in the 70s-80s these manual ones would break all the damned time. Of course US cars from that age we're commonly crap.
However I do live in the UK so they were European/UK cars - Vauxhall, Volvo, Citroen, Renault.
Electric winders tend to experience motor failure leaving you with a stuck window. They don't stress the mechanism that much.
Manual winders, you would generally experience mechanical failure. If you were lucky, you broke the handle. If you were unlucky, you broke the gears and had the pleasure of watching your window fall into the door.
I have. It jammed. When I tried to release it the glass fell out (into the door).
Such positioning could be what the intended customer base react well to.
For example, mechanical window winders would need a whole extra disengagement or locking mechanism for child proofing.
I’d much rather they included a $200 system, since ~ 100% of their customers will want to be able to have speakers in the doors and a mic in the dash (at the very least).