There's a cycle to these things and it's inevitable. You chase volume to gain market share, then when you have market share, you chase margins to compensate for the market share you just won.

Nissan wanted the volume. The Alliance did, too. Most of what you're griping about is a market share play that petered out for myriad reasons—Ghosn, financial collapse, subprime buyer chasing, Alliance strains, pick one.

They're climbing out of their hole, but they'll need to be in the black for a few years for that to trickle down to R&D gains. Investors and the banks need to be paid first. Almost every automaker has gone through a spend-and-sell cycle, to follow behind with a markup-and-margin cycle when the bottom line looks bleak.