YES!!! They need to bring back the Marauder, this time with the 5.0L Coyote engine. If they don't want to resurrect the Mercury division then sell it as a Ford Galaxie. Ford should never have killed off the Panther platform. That decision was emblematic of the mismanagement at Ford.
If I have to choose between a base model new Ford for $40,000 or a really nice '04 Marauder for $35,000 I can tell you which one I'm going into debt for. I'm gonna buy me that Mercury and cruise it up and down the road.
Mismanagement is only part of the problem.
At any point where they made a passenger car in the past 20 years, you can find a Japanese counterpart who's base model would out perform it and outlast it, for half the price.
Focus or Civic?
Take the civic. There are examples on the road with owners manuals written in hieroglyphics, dragging most of its parts behind it, and somehow, keeps moving. A focus of similar vintage is probably the recycled steel in a Kia.
Japan builds the best car they can within the mission parameters it's built to address. Domestic brands keep withholding advancements teasing the next model year.
Ford had a 2.3 turbo they put in nothing since about 79 .... How long was the mid engine Corvette idea dangled like a carrot?
They need to look at Japan, and see how selling the whole car is how you compete.
Their market dried up because the customer base figuered it out