??WHY?? didn't they just put the drip rails back on?

The plastic plug molding hides the roof to side stamping weld joint.

Can also act as a pseudo drip rail, but can also catch leaves and crud.

I agree about toyota designing their "full size" truck, then called t100 after the Dakota.
It doesn't look like it any more but the tacoma was redesigned much larger when the small platform changed from the hilux series.

gm also upsized the colorado/canyon.

right about then Dodge exited the mid-size truck market. A HUGE misstep IMO since obviously they had gotten it right.