there's still obvious physical design flaws in so many American cars that makes them look lower quality. Here's an example, had to drive a Dodge Neon recently and it had lights in the rearview mirror, fairly common design feature these days. Except the way they implemented it for the Neon was stupid, first the lights were actually IN the mirror as opposed to in the mirror mounting area so the lights iluminated the top of the dashboard rather than an area the passengers might actually need it (like your lap to look at a map), then they put the buttons in this stupid place where you'll probably put your thumb to adjust the mirror, then they made the mirror one that glues onto the window rather than suspending from the ceiling so there was this ugly cord dangling from the roof to the mirror to give the lights power. A stupid ugly useless design. Then you get other little things like only the front windows being power the rears were hand cranked, and having the old fashioned forward and backward button for the power windows rather than the newer kid safer up and down buttons, and the fact that the automatic transmission had a longer shift lag than most first time stick drivers. Sure the car might have run forever but two minutes of comparing it to a Sentra or Corolla would show that it was a lower quality car.
The Neon is a 10 year old design and is being replaced as we speak with the Dodge Caliber.
The Neon, in its day, was well-known for reliability and performance. It was favored by weekend racers for its tough track performance. You might not like the ergonomics, but it was a big seller.