Which tires would you put on it? ATs, MTs, something else? And which ones specifically? The small percentage of TE owners who actually take theirs off road would probably replace whatever you put on there as the stock tires with their own personal preference - not to mention many of them also go to 285s. Then you'd also get the majority of TE owners who never take it off road complaining about the ride quality and road noise. These come with street tires because 99.99% of all test drives are on the street and probably 99% of them stay on the street after they're purchased - even Trail Editions.
Intruder we're going to have to agree to disagree on 99% of Trail owners staying on the street. Then yes some people want 285's, but that's a red herring argument. The question is what
standard sized tire, should come on a TE so the vehicle could at least be used as designed. Is that asking for so much? That tire would not be the Dunlop, and the Bridgestone off road is a joke. Moreover 285's can't really be used without altering the design of the vehicle, which is another discussion altogether.
What tire you ask...here's an idea. Allow buyers to choose from a plain vanilla AT, MT, or street tires they now come with. Isn't that a no-brainer for an ordered rig, and how different is that from having several different radio options? What's more important when you're negotiating through snow banks or on a beach with the tide rising. Your tires...or your radio? Yet a model designed to be an ultimate off road machine has multiple radio options, and ONE (very wrong) tire choice? For Trails sold off the lot virtually every dealer sells tires, and other manufacturers like Range Rover have several wheel choices in their brochures that are dealer installations.
In the end Toyota had a choice. Make a special model, but equip it with tires that are eventually going to fail if you use the vehicle as fully designed. Or like the Jeep install a tire that can allow the vehicle to operate as capable. If people want a different manufacturer, or look, or size, fine they can buy it. A Trail buyer should be able to drive off the lot and reasonably operate in a terrain and / or with driving characteristics the design engineers built in, and a significant percentage of buyers expect.