[dragonwriter]

As I recall, the history is basically this:

SUVs became very popular and displaced minivans as the preferred family personal transport because the car companies put lots of money into promoting them for that rule after government safety and other standards that applied to regular passenger autos were extend to apply to minivans.

(Minivans were largely created and marketed as a major class as a response to those standards being applied to passenger autos in the first place; before minivans, the role was filled by station wagons.)

The "utility" function of SUVs was central, they weren't really called SUVs and weren't nearly as popular.

And crossovers blending SUVs and Minivan features are a result of many of those standards now being applied to SUVs, making the distinct class less valuable to the automakers, allowing them to focus more on the market and less on gaming the system. But, without an incentive to game the system, there's also no incentive to create a big marketing push to overcome the preference for SUVs that passed game-the-system marketing created.