Got a chance to drive a Hyundai Accent today... and I am slightly ashamed to say it wasn't that bad. It was a 1.4 (or 1.6) Accent hatchback with a 5-speed (stick, of course). There wasn't much power, and you knew it from the start, but it was peppy (probably because it weighed very little; the only comfort in it was a stereo. Yay for manual windows) and handled well, and the gearbox, while a bit slow, did feel responsive. It could seat two and store a decent amount of stuff in the back, and overall build quality and design was acceptable.
Of course, it was still not wonderful- it was noisy as hell, ugly, soulless, and had something even worse than GM Plastic(tm), but it did redeem itself enough for me to reccomend it to someone looking for a fun new car on a low budget, or a dirt-cheap used car that hasn't been run into the ground (depreciation+Hyundai=worse than Alfa).