That's not what anyone said.
I was responding to this, where you said:
The four door just sucked, full stop. It was truly miserable.
The review cited by TTAC was the Sebring convertible. The 200 review was of the four door.
The 200 review was NOT of that older 4 door (that admitedly sucked). Which is also why I disagreed with his 200 review, as it came with a typical modern car journalist's jaded perspective, as well as the incessant need to be insulting in order to one-up Clarkson types.
If you get out of a new car, or are used to driving a lot of newer or more expensive cars, you might not consider it competetive. Journalists will fall into that category because they are jaded. But if you look at it as a non-enthusiast getting out of ANY 5-10 year old daily driver, all the new cars in the category are so much better than what they have already that it comes down to if you like the style and the price. Even the worst new cars are actually pretty good cars compared to what a lot of us grew up with as new cars. They don't have to be the best in class to be good cars, or worth owning.
A lot of the assertions in threads like these are like the argument that so many magazine racers promote: when one car beats another by 2 tenths of a second in the quarter mile, that car KILLS the other, and the other is a total dog. And the truth is, most people won't notice that difference like we might. And the differences that are so glaringly obvious to you or a journalist (or magazine racer) will be less than important to the average buyer even if they drive the various competitors back to back. If an Accord is slightly better in terms of interior style and fitment, will it seem ENOUGH better to a person getting out of a '95 Anycar to justify it's higher price? Maybe, but very often not. And that's not a bad thing.
Some of us know that the vast majority of car buyers are not enthusiasts who have the same requirements in a car that we do, and not everyone is a princess that feels a sense of entitlement to have the absolute best car in class at any cost, even if it's only incrementally better. We know that the improvements made to the car are enough that when the average new car buyer is looking to trade in their 5-10 year old car, it WILL look and feel competitive to other cars costing more. It may not actually BE the best in class, but it WILL (unlike the last one) be more than good enough for the price to get people to buy it, in greater numbers than the penalty box it replaced. Would *I* buy one? No. I have no need of one. But I can't fault anyone for purchasing one and liking it.