My last three main cars have been diesels. The main caveat with them is that the modern ones have particulate filters that need to go through a regeneration process once in a while. The car needs to get up to a certain operating temperature for a certain period of time for this process to work properly. If you use your car for short trips most of the time, you may not allow your car to run hot enough for long enough and clog your filter. Giving it a decent highway run every few weeks is probably enough, but if it's only ever a short trip commuter, I'd get a petrol.
That said, I love the torque of diesels. They're slower from a standing start, but I love the way they can effortlessly accelerate once they're going. You need to rev the shit out of a petrol engine to get the same acceleration from an equivalent car. It probably goes without saying, but they're great at towing too.
I don't know a lot about the particulate filters and their regeneration, but they are interesting in the alternate solutions available for the daily driver that's unlikely to hit the right temperature for long enough to clean it out. I'm intrigued as to which manufacturers employ the different methods (or not, if they don't care about seriously irritating their customers).
Diesels are indeed torque monsters and that's why I love them too. As you said, they're effortlessly mobile once they get up to speed and they're not terribly slow off the mark unless it's a heavy vehicle. It's funny when a petrol vehicle under load hits a hill and the engine is screaming "what do I do? WHAT DO I DO?" as the diesel cruises past.
It cracks me up every time I hear the reason/excuse for someone having a high performance/notorious hoon vehicle is because they need to tow things around. Either they're incredibly stupid, just pretending to be, or they've combined a little of the two. At least the diesel only upsets your wallet in one areaon the odd occasion the fuel pump throws in the towel.
As for a ute for a non load carrying car, aren't the rear suspensions of utes generally tuned to assume that they're carrying a load? Meaning they can be pretty uncomfortable with no load. I have no idea if the Commodore ute has the same issue.
I can only speak from driving around in my mates VY ute. They're not uncomfortable to drive around with no load. The rear window, and therefore the rear-view mirror, are just about useless. If it were a cab/chassis style, these things would likely be inverted.
I will say that in the single cab, properly driven, quality 6" splits sound beautiful. For fun, we built a custom sub box to fit underneath the tray and ported the sound in through the back of the cab. It was ridiculous! Not something you'd want there permanently, but it was a fun project to see what could be done.