I second the Ford Sync system. It's a microsoft system, so I wish I could hate it, but it actually works quite well. It's slow to react to some button presses, and there are some features stupidly disabled while driving while other (more complicated) features are accessible, but despite those quirks, it works very well.

My only major complaint is that if you leave the radio in "bluetooth audio" mode, then it will start your iPhone playing automatically when you start the vehicle. You need to change to USB or Aux-In so it doesn't start your iphone playing. But it's pretty cool to be driving down the road and listening to streaming audio like pandora or public radio tuner apps over the cellular data connection. The USB port works as a charger for your devices, and also to play mp3 files off of a USB flash drive. It also has integrated Sirrus/XM, which is meh.

I miss the empeg, and I've considered installing it in my truck, but the sync + iphone is "good enough". But since it has a line-in, it would be very easy to connect the empeg, and I'll probably still do that some day.

Ford Focus is as good as any Japanese "hot hatch", and there is a reason why the F-150 is the #1 selling vehicle in the world. Having said that, I drove a new Explorer recently as a rental car and it's complete shit. So I think it really depends on the particular Ford.