The Honda 2.0L makes 197 horsepower, but you have to rev it to nearly 9000 rpm to get that because it doesn't have any frakking torque! 139 ft-lbs at 6100 rpm, to be exact. It'd be a TERRIBLE mass-market engine. There's a reason it's restricted to the Civic Si and not used in other cars.
I don't know too much about the newer Honda engines, but I doubt the one you're speaking of would be that terrible in a grocery getter, and I'm sure the reason Honda doesn't use it for such simply comes down to cost.
The 1.6L in my old Honda made 111 lb*ft at 7,000 rpms and 160 hp at 7,600 rpms. That sounds like a horrible, peaky, useless-around-town engine, no?
The funny thing is, if you compare the dyno chart of my high-strung engine with the base 1.6L in the low-end car, you'll find they match up almost exactly from idle up to around 6,000 rpms. The more powerful engine simply keeps revving when the base engine is giving up. If you never took either engine above 6,000 rpms, you'd probably never be able to tell them apart.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that either engine a torque-monster. I'm just saying that Honda's peaky, top-end motors often get a bad rap as being almost undrivable around town. Really, they're no worse for daily driving and grocery getting than Honda's base engines.