If they are I have never run into an issue. Had a few friends with them as well. Only typical maintenance stuff. But maybe we were lucky? They are a pretty good value right now so maybe your right.
We looked at pacifica's when we were shopping and ended up with the srx. They we're fine, just not our cup-o-tea.
We ended up finding and buying a 2006 escape xlt v6 fwd that was in good condition. But it has some goofy roof rack system that I don't know if we'll ever use...