taurus was and is a very dependable car and why they decided to get rid of it is a mystery....maybe the fact that regular Americans could actually afford it and could keep it for so long didn't set well with the elitist.....
My roommates had two 2002 Tauri that would disagree with you. Most of them were horrible cars that didn't live very long.
The Taurus went away because nobody but fleets and rental agencies were buying them, and because 70% of the target market associated the name with cheap crappy rental cars - PER FORD.