By removing them to a normal level, people are just making it normal looking. Of course someone who really knows, will know.
And I'm not going to go crazy trying to strip it down. I won't go and replace the dumb "4x4" mudflaps with blank ones. But when they do break off, of course I will get blank ones, cause the 4x4 ones look dumb. "Gee, you mean the truck is a 4x4 like all trucks should be, amazing"
If Toyota didn't go nuts plastering the truck with so much pointless stuff, I wouldn't change it. I never removed anything from previous cars, since they followed good tasteful rules. Emblem front and back, name of model on the trunk, and that was it.
But when you look at the back of the Tacoma, you begin to ask yourself why they didn't go further. Like how about an emblem on there that tells us the color. So if you have a red tacoma there would be a "red" emblem on the back, just to clear it up for people so there is no miss understanding.
I just can't stand tacky stuff junking up the look of something. Like front license plates. When I moved to california that really bummed me out coming from intelligent states that don't have them. I drove my car without. It had been through 4 states and never got mutilated with front holes. The truck came with holes in the front. Need to find a solution for that, but still, no plate is on the front. At least it's not like some cars which have no provision for such things in the designs, so they have to add on funky plate holders which destroy the look of the car.
