I’ve found that a pi is good enough, computationally, but not reliability wise.
A lot of things like advanced light control goes through my host, so any lockups or crashes are bad. My pi held up for about 18 months before it began to play up. I’ve found a small NUC system has higher reliability for the same price and power usage.
A van can’t deal with even remotely muddy grass. I lost count of how many vans I rescued, back when I had my pickup. They are also a lot less effective at dragging a horse trailer etc. Vans also (generally) don’t have back seats. If you’re also having to trek up and down the motorways, then the comfort of the ranger makes a big difference.
They have there place, but they are in the same boat as vans etc. They are commercial vehicles, to do a job, not city runabouts to stroke egos.
That doesn’t help against hardware thermal runaway. The pi would overheat its own ram chips and hard lock up. A simple power cycle fixed it.