I'll provide anecdotal evidence to the contrary of pretty much everything you said - I drove my '17 for over 100k miles with ZERO transmission issues, and I never changed the fluid and I towed a camper around every summer with it. I never put in a thermostat bypass, I never changed the fluid, so whatever came in the transmission is what it had.
Is it the best automatic transmission out there? No. Are there people who just seem to have zero luck with it? Absolutely. But telling someone they NEED to do something when there are plenty of us out there who DON'T do those things and have zero issues is BS. They're things to consider, yes, but not a necessity.
I was mentored and trained by an old school Rolls-Royce mechanic.
I remember the old school RR cars with aircraft brakes from the factory. 3 master cylinders, 6 caliper disc brakes (2 calipers on each front wheel, and one on each rear) This system had 2 (redundant) pumps running off the engine camshaft and maintained 22,000 PSI to nitrogen filled accumulators. Who needs a power booster, eh?
Those heavy cars could stop as if they were 911T's. Overkill? Yup! The cost of a brake job 50 years ago was around 10 grand!
Rolls didn't warranty the car, but did warrant the customers' satisfaction. They would send out a factory trained tech anywhere in the world, said my mentor.
Cars have always has flaws and foibles.... always will. Some people get the good vehicles that remain trouble free, others aren't so lucky. I personally and professionally get tickled at the notion that one can beat the system so to speak.
Urban legends rife with stories from blowhards bragging how they drove their as if they stole it for 3zillion miles and never changed the oil gave rise to unrealistic ideas that ensconced fairy tale expectations that, somehow, the vehicle owes them some otherworldly trouble free service life even under harsh or abusive use!
It's a competitive race to enhance poorly engineered things on our trucks and cars. We mere mortals can't win the race, but we can make it more fun while we DO make our improvements to them in hopes of out-running the debt/ payment game, eh? Peace!
