How has the Chevrolet LT(as well as the GMC SLT, and ford XLT) gone from near top of the line, to base consumer grade.

Way back, the hierarchy for Chevrolet was WT, LS, and LT. LT got you all the bells and whistles, all the chrome, the best seats, etc etc. The only ones that went higher were the GMC Denali and Sherrod(2500 and 3500 only) lines.

For ford, it was custom, XL, XLT, and XLT Lariat. Custom was aimed at fleet buyers, XL and XLT were for the general public, those were the mass sellers. XLT lariat (along with Eddie Bauer) was aimed at those who had more money than they knew what to do with.

It seems like, they have slowly been stripping away things that used to make these trims great, in favor of making them more economical. XLT no longer gets leather seats in fords, and it’s exceedingly rare to find leather seats in a LT Chevrolet.