I use the long bed to carry items that have more bulk than weight. Generally it goes something like this: "Dad, I just bought a sectional for the TV room, can you help me get it home"? Or, in another case, an old gym rat buddy of mine's son lost his house, and we moved his weight lifting equipment....... The 8' bed worked great and allowed us to move all of this stuff in one load.

I still think Nissan made a mistake dropping the 8' bed. It is really handy