The only reason that, seemingly, people seem to want vans with all the "bells and whistles" is because that's all that the dealers want to have on their lots and the only ones for which any special deals apply. Because minivans like Siennas, Odysseys, and Quests are so expensive to start with, you'd have to grab a lease deal to keep your monthly payments under $450/month or else finance a car (stupidly) for 5 or 6 years. A couple years ago, I walked into the Toyota dealership where we bought our 2004 Corolla because they were advertising lease deals on their new Sienna minivans. The problem was that in order to get the lease deal, you had to be leasing one of the upper trim level vans. I went in and asked for the price to lease one of their lower trim levels, assuming that it would be less expensive than the loaded model but was told otherwise. For some reason, at this point in my life (age 33 with 3 young kids), I just don't see the sense of spending the money to get the loaded trim level of a car especially when the base model has air, cruise, power windows & locks, automatic climate control, ABS, traction control, and costs $19K like my Mazda5 Sport. When I'm older, with fewer mouths to feed, and perhaps with more spare change, maybe I'll splurge on the car and trim that I want. Until then, I'm happy in the base model for a reasonable price.