Truck upgrade?

hikingst1ck wrote:
Any more than a slight grade and it’ll start losing speed and then shift again and we’ll be running around 4500-5000rpm which gets me a take-your-foot-off-the-gas-before-the-engine-blows look from my wife.

First, welcome to the forum!
And while I haven't driven one of the new turbo 4 banger Silverados, they are seriously impressive on paper and also, real world if you think about it. You've got basically V8 power in a tiny little package.
Yes there's a component of "How long do I run this thing wrung out at 80% + of it's max rpms?" And the other component is how often are you towing where you feel the need for extra power vs the rest of the time when it has more than enough to do the job and gets a few mpgs better than a N/A V8 truck?
I can't speak for the longevity of the engine, and not many can since it's relatively new on the market still, but that would be my only concern. Can you get 150k-250k miles out of it in a pickup truck, especially if you're running it hard sometimes. Or on the flip side, do you even care, if you upgrade trucks rather regularly?

The one bit of advice is that if you "upgrade" to say a 5.3L Silverado, you'll still drop a few gears towing your TT into a headwind and still be 4000rpms+ if you're pulling a grade and maintaining highway speeds. Yes, it will feel more composed. I had my '20 Silverado 5.3/10speed locked in 5th or 6th gear gear pulling the boat (6klbs) up a grade. Couldn't hear that it was running 4000rpms any more than around 2000 on the flats. Forgot until I was down the road a bit and saw the tach still on the wrong side of top dead center!
I haven't personally pulled any steep or long grades with my new 2020 5.3. Our son pulled the boat to Montana this year with it and coming up from the Columbia River eastbound said he was flat peddled at 55mph, by comparison.

If you upgrade now, you'll get premium $ selling yours, but pay a premium for a new one, so about a wash.
Personal opinion, I'd rather have the 5.3 vs the strung out 4 banger, but real world, unless it leaves you with a big repair bill in the future, it's very capable of pulling the occasional grade with your camper.
And to add to it, if you get into high altitude, it will do as good or better than the normally aspirated V8s if it stays cool because it won't lose significant power due to being forced induction.