Japanese held the Irish car and van market for a long time, for reliability they are still very good (except nissan primastar)
They (Toyota, Mitsubishi) did drop back on driver comfort and fuel economy where they once were the leaders, Plumber friend drove a Toyota Hiace for years always changed for same van same colour until he heard the mpg figures for the VW T5 and 6 speed gearbox, bought his first VW a few months ago and loves the drive as well as double the MPG.
Another had the T5 1.9 wouldn't pull your socks off and because of the constant load was always breaking something, bought a new Transit last week so waiting to hear his thoughts as I will have to change my VW T5 next year, she is getting old and mileage is clocking up, it will be hard to convince me to change, might buy the new LWB Caddy, I still have my trusty 98 LWB semi high transit in reserve.