Today's cars are now like Cell phones, every 6 months there is some improvement making the last one obsolete...just saying, but seriously it is amazing how much these vehicles now cost out of the box, and I think it is honestly worth it to bite the bullet and pay a bit more for the loaded model, otherwise you are still paying top dollar for a new version, but without some of the luxuries you are buying something that is 10 years old. When I bought my 2011 Suburban I bought an LT that was a nice truck, I liked all the painted parts...no chrome, it had black leather, front monitor, dvd, 2nd row buckets, back up camera...so it was fairly loaded, what I failed to notice was it had no seat heaters, and no automatic trunk closer which were on the LTZ. I honestly hated not having those features...well at least the trunk closer, the wife hated no seat heaters. When I starting shopping for the new truck last year I did my homework to make sure it had everything. Back in the day I should have bought a LTZ even though it had all the chrome crap on it, I could have just painted all that. The 17 I bought is a loaded SLT with everything except the Denali emblem and motor, but the towing capacity was more on the 5.3 and the sticker on the truck I got was already $71k so getting an $85k Denali was pushing it. I have no regrets, the SLT I got had everything I wanted except for the Xenon lights which I upgraded to LED that produce the same lighting. Go for the Luxury! Cheers!