The Ford Maverick is better than most modern pickups, but still misses the mark. As you mentioned, the bed is significantly smaller than a 1990 Ranger despite being 6 inches longer[1]. Honestly the biggest issue I have with these vehicles is their height, which is a known hazard to pedestrians[2]. The Maverick doesn't fix that issue.
I have questions about the pedestrian article. The article states that almost 3/4 of all vehicles sold are light truck or SUV. So wouldn't it just be statistically more likely that for ANY accident it would be a taller vehicle?
The actual paper discussed in that article isn't just comparing frequencies of accidents, but rather using them to calculate the odds that a given vehicle type causes a pedestrian accident in a variety of scenarios. In doing so the author determined that these vehicles were overinvolved in accidents relative to their frequency on the road.