I share the consensus. 2007 XLT, 281K miles. Got it with about 110K miles. It's a retired law enforcement model, so it only knew PEDAL TO THE METAL or off.
It has had many issues from front drive train vacuum loss eating the integrated locking hubs. The solenoid on the same system going bad and eating the locking hubs. Eventually, I broke down and replaced all of that. So far it hasn't had any grinding sounds so that means it working.
Several starters, probably somewhere around 5 starters (seems kind of a lot, but now I'm a master at replacing them). Always remove the hardest bolt first!!!!!!!!!
Put ~170K miles on it with a pinhole leak in the radiator's passenger side on the high side (It just worked so I never fixed it until recently last year).
Leaking rear heater core connection (posted my fix in another thread).
Leaking front and rear CV shaft seals.
Drove on a broken rear CV shaft towing a 6-7,000lb travel trailer from nevada to california and back (the bearings on the outer/inner shaft connection disintegrated, so it still worked but shook bad only on deceleration.
Overall, with me fixing it through the years I know how she purrs and vibrates. When it makes a sound I know exactly what it is. I can't break down to get another car, except for the wife. She wants a minivan. So we removed the middle row middle seat and made it a SUVan.
I would keep the car and keep upgrading it as much as I can. It's paid off and I know it through and through. Although I would get an Excursion if possible.
Current upgrades:
Rear Detroit True Trac
Air intake
Hikari LED headlights (recalled because they were so bright and glare a lot, but I kept them)
Front grill
Roof Rack
Thinking on 3" spacer lift and bigger wheels/tires. Front open diff to Detroit Locker or Lunchbox locker.