Bash the EcoBoom all y'all want, but I have gotten more trouble free miles out of one than the Burb's 6.5 ever gave me

Sure, the motor is rather complex, but it delivers. Do not know how the 10 speed is working out, but the 6 speed is great. I have also done maintenance *way* ahead of Ferd's schedule as I had read enough (and observed) that the OE schedules are garbage and go far too long. Even the oil life as calculated by computer is junk and have the oil analyses to show that this motor needs very short intervals.
Toward turbo durability, it is water cooled. So even at shut down the turbos stay cool as the design allows coolant to flow by way of convective activity. Only downside to this is that I cannot use Evans as it will coke their product (I asked) and have to stick with glycol mix.
Yes, there were some issues with the first generation no different than any other learning curve.
Am currently running what some might consider the Gen2 EcoBoost with the updated intercooler and first revision of internals. Am impressed with the power delivery as it is smooth. Even on a stock tune, it is easy to surprise the angry moth / rice burner crowd as they do not expect a large SUV to spank them.
Sadly though, Ferd put a suspension in the SUV that has no possibility of stiffening, not even by aftermarket. It is good up to the 7K# trailer territory, but take it up into the 8K# range and the rear starts to losen up. Too bad as even at the higher weight range, pulling is really nice (except for the lose rear part). Decel takes a bit more work as I have to force the tranny into lower gears than the code wants to do on its own (I see this as poor coding). Overall, the only thing the platform really needs is a driveline retarder to compensate for the smaller motor, oh, and a way to stiffen the rear.
So, yes, GM could do well to copy Ferd in its use of boosted smaller displacement motors. GM could also do well by hiring a few Dodge software engineers as those folks figured out how to get deceleration speed under tight control.