re: Making a product "too good". Has this ever been a problem with a product?

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I believe European cars hold up much better than American ones (not including trucks). I had a Volvo that felt as solid 4 years later as the day I drove it off the lot, and the BMW I drive now is the same. They just don't develop the rattles and loose bits that American cars do. Cost more when things DO go wrong, but they go wrong a lot less often, in my experience.

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You should check out the ever-falling reliability rankings of BMW and Mercedes from major American publications. Both of them are now making cars that are pretty broadly known to be "lease-only" automobiles, because they tend to suffer major mechanical failures soon after the term of a typical lease ends.

BMW and Mercedes of today are not what they were in say, the early '90s. They've fallen victim of the typically German urge to "over-engineer". The WWII German tanks had the same problem. Germans for whatever reason like to always use the most bleeding-edge technology. They also love complexity for the sake of complexity. They favor power and performance over ease of maintenance or the ability to field-fix anything or replace one single part. It's almost as if fixing them is an afterthought, even though all the complexities and bleeding-edge technology make fixing them a sadly frequent necessity.

There couldn't be a more stark contrast in the world of automaking than BMW and Toyota.

BMW sells a driving experience. They focus on engines and suspensions and try to make driving as enjoyable as possible. Every new model (and they're new frequently) has its own engine designed brand new from the ground up. They're dropping new engines every couple of years. And they're always the most advanced possible. It's fun, but you'd better lease it because that new complex engine they rushed to develop is going to break, expensively.

Toyota sells an ownership experience. They focus on the vehicle not breaking. They do nothing to impress you performance-wise. They take a decade or more to come out with new models, and even then the engine in it is just an evolution of the one before. It's no fun, but you can depend on it.