The cornbread I've always eaten is sweet. Not grossly sweet, but sweet nevertheless. Maybe if you tried a sweet cornbread recipe, you'd find you take to it.
The lady who added the whole corn kernels also would add yogurt to the mix sometimes. That kept it much more moist and made it hold together better.
Sweet would seem even stranger to me at least non sweet I could relate it to Yorkshire Pudding but it was like eating non sweet maderia cake with gravy just seemed the wrong texture to have with a meal.
I will try it again and maybe just put a little sugar in to bring out more flavour.