Dh and I are anti-minivan as well....but, as of about 6 months ago--and due to the arrival of baby #5--we drive a minivan. It still pains me to *look* at it, but the practicality of driving it simply makes sense.
It probably depends on your carseat situation though. We still had all 5 in some sort of restraint, so being able to fit 3-across somewhere was important. Three boosters across any row is always tricky, as is 3-across in the third row of almost any vehicle, so we needed something that would accommodate 3-across the second row and still have a way to easily access that third row.
Two things steered us away from a larger SUV. First, accessing the third row when you have three-across in the second row was a problem that wasn't really solved by going bigger (we previously drove a Durango and could fit all five restraints in it, though it was tight, and third row access was hard). And second, we couldn't find a large SUV that fit our needs that had headrests in all three seating positions in both back rows....not a huge deal while the kids are in restraints, but definitely an issue when the older three would graduate from HBB, and then even moreso if we intended to keep it long enough for all of the kids to be out of restraints.
As it is now, we drive an Odyssey with two RF'ing seats and a backless booster in the second row. The backless is outboard, which allows that seat to easily slide forward for access to the third row, where we have two HBB.
Cargo space compared to our Durango is a dream and with kids, you can't beat the sliding doors! It doesn't handle as nicely in the snow, but we've had a very mild winter and managed to avoid the expense of snow tires for this year.
We resisted for quite a while, but eventually came to the conclusion that for where we are in our lives right now, a minivan simply makes the most sense. We won't drive it forever...eventually the kids will leave the nest and we'll be able to drive whatever we want. But, for now, we're driving what makes the most sense for us, even though it brought us down a few notches on the cool factor scale