Land Cruiser, famous for having a robust V8

Only the 100 and 200 series have V8s (in the U.S. anyways), and just about every cruiser enthusiast would rather have the turbo diesel they didn't sell here (which are 6 cylinders for the 60/80/100 series, but still V8s for the 200).

gets about 10-11MPG in the real world

After driving a V8 cruiser for a decade, the only time I ever got mileage this bad was when it is entirely low speed city driving. Daily driving right now I get about 13, on the highway going 70-80 mph I get 14-15, but if I drop down to ~65 mph then I can get 16-17. Best I've gotten over a whole tank is about 18.

But yeah, it's not great. My friends '87 turbo diesel cruiser regularly gets 20-22 on the highway and I'm jealous.

averaging $3.00 per gallon (which is unbelievably conservative cause they require premium fuel)

That's definitely above average for me, past few years has been mid $2s, probably closer to $2.60 or $2.70 over the last year. Also doesn't require premium. Some say they do for some unknown reason, but at some point they removed that without changing the engine/power. Even my later model with VVTi doesn't require premium.

You're at over $68k in fuel alone with no other maintenance items! At what point does that reliability matter, versus driving a car that spontaneously dies at 200k but gets 28mpg, you just saved over $46k in fuel alone that can get you into a pretty nice car.

Given the average mileage is around 12,000 a year, that's over 20-21 years. Even at your costs, that's only about $3,500 a year, which isn't that crazy. Using the ~135,000 I've driven in the past decade, 14 mpg overall, and $2.60/gal for gas, it's down a grand to about $2,500 a year, or just over $200 a month. If you can handle some maintenance yourself the costs generally aren't that bad, and you're spending way less than what a new car note would be.

It's not lost on me that this is very consumerist and wasteful, but what are the real reasons to hang on to and daily something like that?

Cause it's gotten me through so much, from flooded roads during Hurricane Harvey to mountain tops in Colorado. I can sleep in the back while camping or pull/tow other cars with it (or even an LMTV cab once). I've never had to worry about whether or not I can make it when driving on private property. When your car has a couple hundred thousand miles and is a decade or two old, you're not worried about every little bush or branch touching your paint. The all terrain tires only make gas mileage worse, but I'm not worried about inch long mesquite thorns giving me a flat.

I've been rear ended in it twice, the first time there was nothing but minor cosmetic damage, didn't even care to bother insurance about it. Second one totaled the cruiser and the car that hit me, but while the guy who hit me rode off in an ambulance, I drove off perfectly fine and people couldn't even tell the cruiser had even been hit. It was 25 years old with 330k miles when it got totaled, and it rarely left me stranded. A friend talked about how we should all get AAA for free tows, it's only 70 a year, but I only had it towed once, so I'd actually lose money on that. Realistically, I could have kept the "totaled" cruiser, but insurance offered me what I originally paid for it a decade prior, so I used that to upgrade to a nicer, slightly newer one. Barring another accident, I might drive this thing til I die (which I suppose could be from an accident).