Look's like you're looking for an argument just for argument's sake here. I think I remember saying that I loved my '76.
Were the folks screaming about the new incarnation being a 4 door also screaming about the beloved badge being put on what was, essentially, a down-graded Cordoba? I ask because I was five when my car was built.
I do remember folks screaming about the badge being put on a FWD 4 banger. Now a lot of those folks who are griping about the badge being put on a 4 door are looking at the 4 bangers with fondness. Maybe it's just a way of reliving our youth? Maybe in twenty years the teens and twentysomethings of today will be reliving their youth by talking about the SRT8 Charger.
My point is if you're going for comparison's, then do it all the way. A lot more of the FWD cars were non-turbo's than had Shelby badges on 'em. The smog era turned the badge into luxo-barges with performance you wouldn't write home about. Hell, even in our want to compare we fail to remember that a lot more of the first three generations Chargers rolled out the factory with 318's than with 440's or Hemi's. Yet in our selective memory all we see is the "glory" and not the reality.