I think the JL/JLU will likely be a great vehicle for the average buyer that wants a convertible 4x4. I don't use my vehicle all the time, but when I do, it's very much like a tool and often stressful situations occur. When those occur I like having what I need where I want it and don't need useless stuff getting in the way, so I inherently tend to modify vehicles I use for off-road.
I'm also aware of the fact that Jeep needs to make a profit and needs to sell vehicles to repeat owners. Jeep and their engineers have different needs than I do. They need a product that is nice for the average owner and to be fairly problem free for about 10 years give or take. Typically that does mean a vehicle that's problem free for much longer than that, because they're looking at a bell curve (I think) for when components will fail. I want to keep a vehicle for the rest of my life and would like that to be as easily maintainable as possible, trying to be easy on it, but having to use it like a tool quite often.
In life there's a lot of ways to not have to fight entropy. We can get/design something that should last our lifetime or we can do without. I feel like newer designs certainly haven't accepted the latter, as the typical person that's willing to drop $40k for something to get groceries with is not in that commitment for the life of that vehicle so liberties are taken by engineers to facilitate price and most often manufacturing. In doing that there's often some major design flaws that should have never been considered, but they will easily work for a decade or 2 and TJs are certainly not free from these designs, but there's less stuff in general. I probably removed only 20 lbs of "extra" stuff in my TJ when I had it torn apart. Yes there's still many areas that if I was to start from scratch I would redesign, but like the engine swap, you may get peace of mind or something, but you basically just spend a bunch of money when a workaround is probably more than adequate. However, sometimes we just need to work on something for our own sanity.
For those of us holding onto a 20 year old vehicle, there's numerous reasons why we're holding on. From my perspective it's one of the last designs that's very simple and it happens to be a fairly cheap entry as well and there's some technical areas that are better than the newest offerings. I have a 1996 Grand Cherokee and it seems way more complicated than the TJ, but I'd almost rather have that $1,200 vehicle more than a JKU with the 3.8L. The ZJ is a 5.2L and for everyday driving full time AWD is kinda handy occasionally, but for the price of a used JKU, you could rebuild the thing a couple of times.
When I hit $40k on my TJ, which is unfortunately much closer than I had hoped for, I feel like I'll be able to overbuild the drivetrain and suspension, to actually outperform a new JL ie normal highway/city driving and off-road, but it will be rough around the edges because it's custom, which few potential new buyers would accept. And those that would like it certainly would need financing which is mostly unavailable for anything not mass produced. Also to be fair someone had to buy my TJ new, so it just happens to work out that I can exploit someone that dropped somewhere around $20k without counting inflation, extra taxes, regulations, their insurance, etc. I just keep coming back to excel sheets and when you consider all the costs and typical life and maintenance, these used vehicles (not really a Wrangler so much) seem so cheap in the long run (labor is taken for granted as this is another area I can exploit).
I guess my slant on TJ vs JL vs JK, unlimited or 2 door, is that I feel like post TJ is too heavy for my liking for a sub-half ton and unfortunately I have to admit that my electrical skills are poor when it comes to repairs and I don't buy a vehicle expecting to ever sell it.
But I guess the biggest positive I have for the TJ is that it's like driving a piece of equipment (well old equipment I'm used to, so yeah it's a matter of nostalgia). There's just something about driving something that's a bit rough around the edges. It just feels like adventure, which I feel is constantly lacking. For most that's a minus and that's great cuz people need to buy new vehicles, so I can buy them used one day.