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"And this was the whole point of this thread. Toyota has cheaped out on the interior of Sequioa and have designed it in cheaper less costly method until you made personal attacks."
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Agreed, as my posts in the past had been solely on the vehicle until your personal attacks such as references to American's not valuing finer details which is unbecoming on a Canadian. Suggesting I was lying about test driving the the LC or that I don't have a drivers license does not advance the discussion on the merits/demerits of the Sequoia which is the objective of the forum. Let's stick to the vehicles.
On that note:
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The Land Cruiser and LX IMO won't be leaving the US market anytime soon. The Land Cruiser (not so much the LX) is a landmark SUV for Toyota and has many generations of followers...also the median income level of the Landcruiser is around $240,000 while the Seqiuoa is around $120,000 so a lot of owners don't worry about price. LX income median is close to $320,000 these are different buyers than your average Seqiuoa owner
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While your opinion about the future of the LC are no more or less accurate than my own, the facts regarding the popularity of the LC in the US do not support the view that the LC is a landmark SUV in the eyes of Americans or that the "generations of followers" results in customers actually buying the LC as you suggest.
Vehicles are simply a business and when generations of followers no longer purchase a particular model, you can expect a manufacturer like Toyota to drop it relatively quickly. I suggested the LC platform would be dropped within 5 years however given the recent and current sales I actually expect it to be dropped from the Toyota line-up in the US much sooner. Toyota essentially invested nothing in the 15 year old platform during this latest refresh to the LX/LC while making a significant investment in the newly designed Sequoia platform.
The LC sold (US) 430 units in Jan 08 and that was nearly double the sales from a year ago. They will sell less than a total of 5000 units for all of 2008. That makes it the worst selling vehicle made by Toyota that is sold in the US. Even if you add in the 730 LX570 units sold in Jan. the entire platform would still be the lowest selling vehicle platform in Toyota's US line up. And that includes the expensive LS series, the inexpensive Scions and the unique FJs, not to mention the very popular car and mid-size suv platforms..
It doesn't take a business degree to suggest that the LC/LX platform will be the first to go as soon as Toyota runs into some selling headwind. My guess is that they will drop these platforms while at the same time offerring a significantly upscaled version of the Sequoia as a Lexus replacement for the LX570. That would give them a complete SUV lineup for the Toyo brand (FJ, Rav, Highlander, 4Runner, Sequoia) and a complete lineup for Lexus (GX and a future upscale version of Sequoia). Given that Toyota's overall year over year sales in Jan were down -2.3%, the future of the LC/LX platform may be dimmer than any of us are aware.