If I had to have one of these I would go for earlier model. Why? I have a belief (hunch?) that Chrysler quality became worse as the decade went along. I think there was a lot of cost cutting and supplier squeezing as things got nasty. IMHO*
* I have no facts for this.
You may in fact be right. My folks drove a '97 Concorde trouble-free up to 350,000 Kms, and had it not met the side door frame of an F-150, it would probably still be going strong. Then, two years ago at the NAIAS in Toronto, I sat in a 2008 Sebring in which the entire dash assembly was coming loose on the passenger side. No doubt show cars go through a lot of abuse, but the other thousand cars there seemed to be OK.
Jeep is an awesome brand, I don't see why they needed this vehicle. The GC is big enough, if Chrysler wanted something bigger they should have used a more efficient diesel engine, but Jeep has had a bad history with those too.