Well, I know I appear to be the picture of 'soccer mom', with the car seat in the back of my Tahoe in the suburbs........
But.....
We took our truck up to the boundary waters two weeks after we got it, and I was never so grateful for 4WD. We drove 10 hours through every type of precip known, rain, snow, sleet, freezing rain, freezing drizzle, ice pellets & any/everything else you can imagine. If it hadn't been for 4HI, we'd have been screwed !
A couple weeks ago we rented a core-airater & a de-thatcher for the lawn at Home Depot. We thought we'd get to use the hitch, and rent their mini-trailer. It turned out to not be needed, they both fit in the back of the truck, no problem.
When I take the baby up to the farm, I never even think about having room to take anything I want with me. Just toss whatever in the back & go.
So, some of us 'burbanites' do make use of an SUVs utility! I do see a lot of people like you describe though, John. You should have seen the looks we got when we got back from the boundary waters before we washed all the sh%t off the truck! It looked like the commercials where someone drives through a mud bath.