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So much of this question is dependent on answering how it is used. A homeowner or renter with a daily commute or a retired single person is not so different. Those who expect to make money with the vehicle, not just offset income may have a different take on the thread title.
Past the brand-new diesel pickups with DEF (mileage is back up as tuning is better with urea injection; about the same, IOW, as my ten year old pickup) I'd like to be able to completely re-tune mine with a different turbocharger and EFI map. A few more additions mechanically (more gears would be fun) and then some aero changes would see me solo at a solid 30-mpg highway, solo (non-towing) atthe usual 58-mph in the South Central U.S. (climate & terrain).
How well this would match up to the artculated rig HP/TQ problems is the really interesting question in my mind. 15-mpg at present, 16-mpg average is easy to forecast. Aero is a more important question for a 17k lb rig. Hitting 20-mpg would be hilarious in anticipating the calls of "liar, liar" from RV owners, but somewhere between 16 and 19 is really not hard to see (conditions dependent as climate & terrain figure so prominently).
As the spirit of the thread is as much about spending money as the ostensible desirability of saving money, let it be said that the successful completion of modifications and testing would be expensive. More than I have at present.
May the new year see us all make . . . and then make better decisions with what we then have.
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