I think the idea they sold the boardroom initially was fine, as the basic platform is quite good and with a great modern restyling inside and out and some redesign to ease production and add safety features all would have been well. Think cheap Mazda 3 with all those handy Ford dealers.
The problem was the styling job was botched, as mentioned it looks like a modernized Escort styled by committee. 'OK Bob, we'll give it your fender vents; Tom, those tailights of yours are spiffy; Bill, the shiny grill and big headlights are in there...etc. Hey, no more selling to grandma, the kids are going to go crazy over all this sh*t.'
Hell, it's not like they couldn't have just brought the styling of the European Ford to the old platform, how simple would that have been?
Hopefully it's the last of the pre-Mulally Fords.